The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL AND FELIX, 547
The centurion and bis prisoner were at once introduced into the presence
of Felix. Felix read tlie letter of Lysias, and after briefly inquiring to what
province Paul belonged, and being told ho was a Cilician, ho said, " I will hear
out your case when your accusers have arrived." 1 Ho then handed Pan! over
to a soldier to bo kept in one of the guard-rooms attached to the old Herodian
palace which now formed the splendid residence of the Procurators of Judsea.
CHAPTER XLL
PAUL AND FELIX.
"Antoaius Felix, per oroac-rn saevitiain et libidinem, jus regium servill exercuit." TAO. Hut. v. 9.
" Jam pridem Judaeae impositot , . ,
Ann. xji. 54.
ingeuio
et cuiicta malofacta sibiunpune ratua."
A R05IAN judge to whom a prisoner had been sent, with an elogium was
bound, if possible, to try him within three days. Felix, however, had to send
a message to Jerusalem, and fix a time for the case to come on, hi order that
the accusers might be present; and as the journey took nearly two days,
it was the fifth day after St. Paul's arrival at Cssarea that he was brought
to trial. The momentary diversion in his favour, of which by this time the
Pharisees were probably ashamed, had settled into an unanimous hatred, and
the ciders, probably of both parties, hurried down to accuse their adversary.
AiifJiias in person accompanied them, eager for revongo against the man
who had compared him to a plastered sepulchre. It must have been intensely
disagreeable to these dignified personages to be forced to hurry on a fatiguing
journey of some seventy miles from the religious to the political capital of
Judaea, in order to induce a Gentile dog to give up an apostate mesith to
but the Sanhedrists, smarting under defeat, would not be
their jurisdiction ;
likely to leave any stone unturned which should bring the offender within
reach of vengeance.
They wished to make sure of the extradition of their victim, and being
little able to plead either in Greek or Latin, and more or less ignorant
of the procedure in Roman courts, they gave their brief to a provincial
barrister named Tertullus. Everything was done with due formality. They
first lodged their complaint, and then the prisoner was confronted with them
that he might hear, and if possible refute, their accusations. Tertullus was
evidently a practised speaker, and St. Luke has faithfully preserved an outline
of his voluble plausibility. Speaking with politic complaisance as though ha
were himself a Jew, he began by a fulsome compliment to Felix, which served
as the usual captatio benevolentiae. Alluding to the early exertions of Felix
against the banditti and the recent suppression of the Egyptian false Messiah,
1 " Qtd cum elogSo mltttmtnr ex Integra audiendi mat,"