Acts 24:27

Acts 24:27. But after two years. It was in the summer or autumn of A.D. 60 that Felix was recalled to Rome. Two years he seems to have been from time to time in company with St. Paul; but the words of the apostle as far as we know, made no impression on that cold, hard heart. Did they, in the providence of God, meet again in Rome? On the ‘two years,' Wordsworth strikingly comments: ‘Even Felix had two full years of God's long-suffering; “Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down”‘ (Luke 13:8-9).

Porcius Festus came into Felix' room. We know nothing of the previous history of the procurator, whose memory has been preserved owing to his meeting with Paul, whom he found languishing a prisoner in Cæsarea. Neither Tacitus nor Suetonius mention him in their histories. Josephus, however, tells us that he governed his stormy province with a wise, firm rule, putting down the Sicarii (assassins), and other predatory companies, who were then harassing Judæa. The Jewish historian finds no fault with this Festus: he seems to have been both just and upright. His rule was unfortunately prematurely cut short by death, before he had completed his second year of office. He was succeeded by Albinus, another corrupt and evil governor (A.D. 62).

And Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound. Felix was recalled owing to grave complaints made against him at headquarters. He was only acquitted through the influence of his brother Pallas at the imperial court of Rome. Leaving his province, then, under a cloud, he was base enough to endeavour to conciliate his enemies among the Jews, by leaving behind him in their power an innocent man whom he knew they hated. The conduct of Felix in this matter was followed by Albinus, who, two years later, filled Felix' office. When he heard that Gessius Floras had been appointed to succeed him, in order to conciliate the Jews, he liberated most of the state prisoners at Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities).

It has been asked, How was it allowed by the overruling providence of the Most High, that, in the busy, successful life of the apostle, two years at this most eventful period of the early Church's history should have been thus spent by St. Paul in seclusion at Cæsarea? At Rome, during the long captivity, there was the great and growing church to influence and to assist in organising; but what was there to do at Cæsarea, a comparatively unimportant military station, where surely the presence of an apostolical man like Philip was amply sufficient for the work there? It is at first thought strange, too, that none of the ‘Pauline Epistles' appear to have been written during the long Cæsarean captivity. Now, on several occasions in his writings, Paul makes mention of ‘My Gospel.' Several of the most venerated of the fathers (Irenæus, Origen, Jerome) tell us Paul was accustomed to mention the Gospel of Luke as a work written by him. Is it not more than probable, that this pause in his life's restless labours was used by him to re-cast possibly to set in order, and to add to ‘memories' which he had already collected of the ‘Life of Lives,' ‘memories' which he had already frequently used in his preaching and teaching. Where could a more favourable spot be found than Cæsarea? than that quiet prison there, to which we are aware his friends had ready access? Philip, we know, lived at Cæsarea; it was, besides, near the Holy City, in the vicinity too of those places made for ever sacred by the presence and acts of the Master. May we not in all reverence suggest, that there, in that prison-room of the palace of Herod and Felix, with an impassive Roman legionary (perhaps chained to him) watching him, and listening puzzled and wondering, the Virgin Mother herself, under the guardianship of the beloved apostle, came and visited the famous servant of her Divine Son, and dictated to him, for his Gospel, that wondrous story in the picturesque Aramaic-coloured Greek so different to the other Chapter s, which forms the introduction (chap. Acts 1:5-26 and it) to what we call the ‘Gospel according to St. Luke'?