Acts 24:10

Paul's Defence against the Sanhedrim's Accusation before Felix; Procurator Judæa, 10-21.

Acts 24:10. Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered. Paul's defence was a strange contrast to the lying flatteries and the distorted accusations which made up the speech of the Sanhedrim advocate Tertullus. He prefaces his masterly address by a few graceful, well-chosen words of courtesy to the Roman official presiding over the court, in which he simply expresses his contentment at having to defend himself before a judge who had had such ample opportunities of making himself acquainted with the condition of the Jewish nation and its varied schools of thought: in the present instance, he added, the task of the judge would be an easy one; for only twelve days had elapsed since he, Paul, had arrived at Jerusalem as a pilgrim, and in that time he had certainly engaged in no dispute ox argument which could possibly stir up sedition. The prisoner then passed to the second charge, the being a ‘Nazarene ringleader.' He certainly did belong to that sect, but he worshipped no strange Gods. His God was the God of his fathers; his creed, the creed of the great bulk of the Jewish nation, a religion acknowledged and sanctioned by Roman law the central point of which creed was the belief in the resurrection of the dead, in which belief, surely, his accusers shared.

From this he turned to the third and last charge pressed against him, ‘the profanation of the temple,' Far from having profaned that sacred house, his very object in coming to Jerusalem was, after distributing the alms he had collected in far lands for the poor of his people, to perform certain holy rites enjoined on pilgrims in connection with the temple; and it was in the carrying of these out in the temple, that some foreign Jews from Asia seized him and accused him of profanity. Where were these men who had brought such strange meaningless charges against him? Surely they ought to have been present in person. If they, the real accusers, however, have for some unknown reason not chosen to present themselves, let these, pointing to the Sanhedrim representatives, say plainly what evil they have found me doing or saying, except that one assertion of mine respecting the resurrection of the dead.

Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation. We know Felix had been procurator since A.D. 51-52; he had therefore been ‘judge' now six or seven years, a comparatively long period at a time when these higher magistrates were changed and shifted so constantly. It is, however, probable that he had held office among the Jewish people for even a much longer time, for Tacitus speaks of him as governor of Samaria when Cumanus was Procurator of Judæa. If this were the case, it would give him some four years more experience of Jewish manners and customs.

I do the more cheerfully answer for myself. Paul felt at least his judge had had, during his long years of office, ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with the character of the leaders of the Jews, with their jealousies and narrowness, and with the peculiarities of the people generally. Possibly, too, in the background the apostle felt that Felix knew something, from his long residence in the province, of the Christians, and of their harmless, blameless lives; and how unlikely it was that one of their leaders should ever wish to stir up sedition.