Acts 24:27

χάριτα for χάριτας with אABC. Vulg. ‘gratiam.’

27. διετίας δὲ πληρωθείσης, but when two years were fulfilled, i.e. fully completed. It may be that St Luke intends to indicate by his expression, that it was not a reckoning of time such as was usual among the Jews, where portions of a year were sometimes counted for a whole, but that the Apostle’s detention endured for two years complete.

ἔλαβεν διάδοχον ὁ Φῆλιξ Πόρκιον Φῆστον, Porcius Festus came into Felix’ room. Lit. ‘Felix received Porcius Festus as a successor.’ Festus was made governor by Nero probably in A.D. 60 and died in about two years. Josephus (B. J. II. 14. 1) gives him a far better character than his predecessor, but he had the same kind of difficulties to deal with in the outbreaks of the populace and the bands of assassins with which the country was infested. (Jos. Ant. XX. 8. 10.)

θέλων τε χάριτα καταθέσθαι τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ὁ Φῆλιξ, and Felix desiring to gain (lit. to store up) favour with the Jews. What Felix particularly desired at this time was to blunt the anger which the Jews (especially those of Cæsarea) felt towards him, that they might be less bitter in their charges against him on his recall. And so he used Paul as his ‘Mammon of unrighteousness’ and left him detained that he might make himself friends thereby.

κατέλιπε τὸν Παῦλον δεδεμένον, left Paul bound (R.V. in bonds). This seems to indicate that before his departure Felix withdrew the indulgence which had been previously granted to Paul, and put him in bonds, so as to give to his successor the impression, which the Jews desired, that he was deserving of punishment. It would be very interesting to know what St Paul did during the two years that he was kept at Cæsarea. Various conjectures have been ventured on, but none with any ground of certainty. Some, accepting him as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, point to this period as the time of its composition. Others assign to this imprisonment those letters of the Apostle which speak so much of his bonds, viz. to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians and Philemon, but the evidence in favour of Rome as the place whence they were written seems far to outweigh all that can be said on behalf of Cæsarea. Our only reflection on such a gap as this in the history of St Paul’s work must be that the Acts was not intended to be a narrative of any man’s labours, but how God employed now this servant, now that, for the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ. The remembrance of this will prevent us seeking from the book what it was not meant to give.