Chapter Twenty-Five

Festus in Jerusalem; Jewish complaints about the Apostle Paul (1–6). The apostle at Festus’s tribunal (7–12). Agrippa II (with Bernice) in Caesarea learns from Festus about Paul’s case and expresses a desire to hear him (13–27).

Acts 25:2. Then the chief priests and the leading men of the Jews came forward to him with charges against Paul and urged him, “The chief priest” — Ishmael, son of Phabi, whom Felix had appointed in place of the deposed Ananias (Acts 23:2; Flavius, Antiquities XX, 8, 8 and 11). “The leading men of the Jews” — οι πρώτοι τῶν Ιουδαίων — the foremost of the Jews — the most eminent and distinguished people. It is likely that this designation indicates not only members of the Sanhedrin but also other persons of the highest official and public standing in the secular sphere, which points to a considerable intensification of hostility toward Paul, the supposed enemy of the national religion. It appears that these complainants came to the new procurator specifically to congratulate him and to present themselves, but at the same time wasted no time in bringing him a complaint against Paul as well, presenting his case as a matter concerning the entire people — the most important national affair of the current moment, not admitting of delay.

Acts 25:3. asking him to do them a favor by summoning him to Jerusalem — they were plotting to kill him along the way. From what follows (Acts 25:15) it is clear that the Jews directly “demanded” the condemnation of Paul. But Festus prudently rejected their request (Acts 25:16).

Acts 25:5. He said: let those among you who have the authority come down with me and, if there is anything wrong with this man, let them accuse him. “Those who have power among you...” — that is, those who hold authority, those invested with rights or powers of attorney on behalf of the Jewish people or the Sanhedrin.

Acts 25:6. After spending no more than eight or ten days among them, he returned to Caesarea, and the next day, taking his seat on the tribunal, he ordered Paul to be brought. The new governor’s manner of thought and action reveals his decisiveness and justice, combined with a commanding severity befitting a Roman government official whose duty it was to administer justice that was righteous, prompt, and merciful. How pitiable beside this dignity of a pagan stands the baseness of the Jewish national leadership, which humbly pleaded for, under the guise of a favor, the possibility of a treacherous murder of a prisoner on the road to justice!

Acts 25:7. When he appeared, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against Paul, which they were unable to prove. “Stood around him” — perhaps to intimidate Paul and deprive him of courage and composure. “Many and serious charges...” — what exactly? The author of Acts does not say directly, noting only that these charges were unsubstantiated and unproven. From the apostle’s answer (Acts 25:8) one can infer that the accusations were the same as earlier — at the trial before Felix (Acts 24:5-6). There is, however, something new, or at least more sharply expressed: an accusation of some crime “against Caesar.” This appears to be a more emphatic, intensified version of the earlier charge of the apostle as a “troublemaker” (Acts 24:5). It is also possible that the slander which the Thessalonian Jews had leveled against the Christians was repeated here (Acts 17 ff.), alleging that the Christians worship “another king, Jesus,” and therefore act “contrary to the decrees of Caesar.”

Acts 25:8. He said in his own defense: I have committed no offense either against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against Caesar. The verse presents either the apostle’s genuinely brief and decisive answer in his own defense, or perhaps conveys only the substance of Paul’s defense speech.

Acts 25:9. Festus, wishing to please the Jews, replied to Paul: are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged there by me in this matter? Like Felix, Festus found no guilt in Paul, but dared not — just as Felix had not — offend the Jews by releasing the innocent man. Therefore, wishing to please the Jews, he asked Paul: “are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged there by me in this matter?” Although by this wording Festus gave to understand that he would not abandon Paul to the mercy of the Sanhedrin, Paul nonetheless refused such indirect and unreliable protection and preferred to have his case referred not into the hands of the lower but into the hands of the higher court of Caesar, to which he had full right as a Roman citizen. Festus had to ask Paul — “are you willing?” — because the transfer of a case from a higher judicial instance (the procurator’s court, acting in Caesar’s name) to a lower one (a local, national court) could only be done at the request of the defendant. On the other hand, not doubting Paul’s firm refusal of his proposal, Festus nonetheless asks Paul “are you willing?” — still out of the same deference to the Jews, to whom Festus wished to show that his refusal to grant their request to hand Paul over to them (Acts 25:4) was made not from ill will toward them but depended on the defendant himself, who could not, against his will, be transferred under Roman law from a higher judicial instance to a lower one. Festus “while not yet knowing the Jews and not having received honors from them, answered justly (Acts 25:4); but when he had visited Jerusalem, he likewise began to please them, and not simply to please them but with servility” (Chrysostom).

Acts 25:10. Paul said: I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. Paul’s refusal breathes dignity and the consciousness of his complete innocence. “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal,” he answered, and answered rightly, because the court of the Roman governor was considered the court of the emperor himself. “Where I ought to be tried” — a hint that if Festus himself found no guilt in Paul and, so to speak, has neither the right nor the courage to condemn an innocent man, still less does he have the right to hand this innocent man over to the foreseeable condemnation of a lower court: here only the court of Caesar himself could be impartial and just. “I have done no wrong to the Jews” — a new ground for refusing to be tried by the Jewish court, whose demands constitute unceremonious lawlessness and promise nothing but lawlessness. “As you yourself know very well” — ως καί σύ κάλλιον επιγινώσκεις — “as you yourself know better,” that is, you know better — or ought to know — both that I have not wronged the Jews and that one who has not wronged them should not be handed over to them but sent to the higher court of Caesar. This subtly and delicately shows the inappropriateness of the very question — “are you willing?” You know better than you let on what I ought to want — both by Roman law and by the consciousness of innocence before the Jews: there is no need to ask about it, the matter is clear. The apostle in this case has nothing to fear: he is fully prepared even to die if he has deserved it; and if there is no guilt in him, then “no one can give” (χαρίσασθαι — make a gift of) “me to them.” This decisive declaration, limiting the procurator’s own freedom, Paul makes evidently because Festus, with his revealed tendency to please the Jews, gave strong reason to doubt his impartiality, suggesting that the intrigues of the apostle’s mortal enemies would prevail over this procurator as well. “I appeal to Caesar!” — the apostle concludes, relieving Festus of the fear of stirring Jewish displeasure by releasing him, and finding the present moment most favorable for fulfilling the Lord’s will, which had destined him to bear witness to Him in Rome as well (Acts 23:11).

Acts 25:12. Then Festus, having conferred with his council, answered: you have appealed to Caesar — to Caesar you shall go. “Festus, having conferred with his council” — of several officials called councillors, who were customarily attached to provincial governors to take part in the administration of the province. “You have appealed to Caesar — to Caesar you shall go.” A note of displeasure sounds in this announcement, understandable after the subtle hints to which the apostle was moved by the procurator’s conduct.

Acts 25:13. After some days King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus. “King Agrippa.” This was Herod Agrippa II, the last king of the Herodian dynasty. He was the son of Herod Agrippa I (spoken of in Acts 12), the great-grandson of Herod I, and the brother of Drusilla — the wife of the former procurator Felix. He was raised at the court of the Roman emperor Claudius, who, shortly after the death of his father, gave him the territory of Chalcis (in Syria), and four years later (around 53 A.D.) gave him in its stead the former tetrarchy of Philip and the tetrarchy of Lysanias (see the notes to Matt 2 and Luke 3:1), with the title of king and the authority to have care and oversight of the Jerusalem temple (which was completed during his reign; see the note to John 2:20) and to appoint the high priests of Jerusalem (Flavius, Antiquities, XIX, 9, 2; XX, 1, 1 and 3, 7, 1). “Bernice” — Agrippa’s own sister, who had first been married to her uncle Herod, the ruler of Chalcis, then after his death lived with the above-mentioned brother in what was supposed to be an unlawful relationship (Flavius, Antiquities XX, 7, 3), then married Polemon, king of Cilicia (ibid., 7, 5), and finally was in the company of Vespasian and Titus. “To pay their respects to Festus...” The fulfillment not merely of a duty of courtesy, but of a direct obligation — in view of their vassal relationship to Rome.

Acts 25:14. And as they spent many days there, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king, saying: there is a man left here in custody by Felix, There was evidently no pressing need for Festus to lay Paul’s case before the king. If he did so, it was, as the author of Acts notes, because there had to be something to occupy the “many days” the king spent there, the more so since the case was not without interest or significance for the king, and Festus might even have hoped to hear from the king, upon his acquaintance with the case, a more correct and competent opinion than he himself could form, since he had so recently arrived in this province and was unfamiliar with its ordinances, character, and customs (cf. Acts 25:26-27). Acts 25:15-21. Festus gives Agrippa a fairly detailed account of Paul’s case, incidentally pointing to his own personal honesty (without, however, disdaining a lie, cf. Acts 25:20), integrity, and diligence in conducting this case, and the advantages of Roman judicial procedure in general compared to that of the Jews at the time.

Acts 25:16. I answered them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over any person to death before the accused has his accusers present and is given the opportunity to make his defense against the charge. “None of the charges I had expected” — judging by the insistence and fury of the accusers, especially charges of a political character. The one charge of this kind was so flimsy and, above all, so unsubstantiated — like all the rest — that the procurator’s words amount to a complete acquittal of the accused.

Acts 25:19. but they had certain disputes with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, and whom Paul asserted to be alive. “Disputes... about their religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, and whom Paul asserted to be alive.” The expression rings with indifference toward all these truths and with a desire to appear as standing above these “Jewish superstitions,” as pagans generally described the revealed Hebrew religion. Paul’s teaching about the resurrection of Christ is conveyed with unconcealed mockery: “περί τινος Ιησοῦ τεθνηκότος, όν έφασκεν ο Παῦλος ζῆν” — about a certain Jesus who had died, and whom Paul “asserted to be living” — that is, claimed something beyond his power, as are the eternal and irresistible laws of nature.

Acts 25:20. Being at a loss how to investigate such matters, I asked: is he willing to go to Jerusalem and be judged there concerning this? Acts 25:9. “Being at a loss how to resolve this question.” This is a lie: the question Festus put to Paul was not put because he was at a loss to resolve such a clear question, but from a desire to “please the Jews” (Acts 25:9). This lie is employed from a desire to present himself before Agrippa in a better light. Acts 25:21. But since Paul appealed to be kept for the decision of His Majesty, I ordered him to be held in custody until I could send him to Caesar. “For the decision of His Majesty” — the same as “for the judgment of Caesar,” whose customary title since Octavian had been Augustus.

Acts 25:22. Then Agrippa said to Festus: I would like to hear this man myself. Tomorrow, replied the other, you shall hear him. “I would like to hear him myself.” It is very probable that Agrippa had previously heard something about the apostle and about Christianity (Acts 26:26), and it was entirely natural that he would be glad to take the opportunity to see and hear this greatest confessor and teacher of Christianity.

Acts 25:23. The next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp and entered the audience hall with the chiliarchs and the prominent men of the city, at the command of Festus Paul was brought in. “With great pomp” — that is, in royal fashion, befitting their rank. “With the chiliarchs.” In Caesarea — the seat of the procurator, the governor of such a turbulent province as Palestine was at that time — five cohorts of troops were stationed and consequently five chiliarchs (Flavius, On the War Jude 3:4). “The prominent men of the city” — the representatives of the city in which the administration of an entire province was concentrated. This was therefore a numerous and brilliant gathering of representatives of the military and civil departments of Caesarea, with the king and his sister and the governor of the province at their head. It was into this brilliant gathering that the apostle was brought in chains (Acts 26:29).

Acts 25:24. And Festus said: King Agrippa and all you men present with us! You see the one against whom the whole multitude of the Jews appealed to me both in Jerusalem and here, crying out that he ought not to live any longer. Presenting the prisoner to the assembly, Festus briefly recounts his case and the purpose of this new examination — “so that I may have something to write” (Acts 25:26). So, evidently, the case of poor Paul had come to such a pass that there was nothing even to write about him: he should have been released, but was not — “for fear of the Jews” — and yet there was nothing to accuse him of either. Poor justice! Poor guardians of the vaunted Roman law! “The whole multitude of the Jews” — somewhat exaggerated, cf. Acts 25 and Acts 25:15. It is possible, however, that the persons mentioned there were indeed accompanied by a more or less considerable crowd, reinforcing the complaints and accusations against Paul and demanding with shouts that he be condemned to death.

Acts 25:26. I have nothing definite to write to the sovereign about him; therefore I have brought him before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after examination I may have something to write. “I have nothing definite to write about him.” It is possible that the governor was genuinely uncertain how to present the substance of the case clearly and accurately, which is entirely understandable for a foreigner who had only recently arrived in this province and was unfamiliar with its laws, character, and customs — even though from the charges presented against Paul he had formed the firm conviction that by Roman law Paul was not subject to the death penalty. It was therefore natural for him to want to hear the opinion of those specially assembled, and in particular of Agrippa as the one most familiar with the local institutions and customs of the country, in order to arrive at a fully accurate judgment about this case, about which he needed to write a detailed report to the emperor.