The life and work of St. Paul

THE LIFE AND WOEK OF ST. PAUL.
he began to assure his Excellency, with truly legal rotundity of verbiage, of
the quite universal and uninterrupted gratitude of the Jews for the peace
which he had secured to them, and for the many reforms l which had been
initiated by his prudential wisdom. The real fact was that Felix was most
peculiarly detested, and that though he had certainly suppressed some
brigands, yet he had from the earliest times of his administration distinctly
encouraged more, 2 and was even accused of having shared their spoils with
Ventidius Cumanus when he had the separate charge of Samaria.* He then
apologised for intruding ever so briefly on his Excellency's indulgent forbear-
ance, but it was necessary to trouble him with three counts of indictment
against the defendant namely, that first, ho was a public pest, who lived by
exciting factions among all the Jews all over the world ; secondly, that he
was a ringleader of the Nazarenes ; and thirdly, that he had attempted to
profane the Temple. They had accordingly seized him, and wanted to judge
him in accordance with their own law ; but Lysias had intervened with much
violence and taken him from their hands, ordering his accusers to come before
the Procurator. By reference to Lysias * his Excellency might further
ascertain the substantial truth of these charges. When the oration was over,
since there were no regular witnesses, the Jews one after another " made a
6
dead set" against Paul,
stated.
asseverating the truth of all that Tertullus had
Then the Procurator, already impatient with the conviction that this was,
as Lysias had informed him, some Jewish squabble about Mosaic minutiaa,
flung a haughty nod to the prisoner, in intimation that he might speak.
St. Paul's captatio benevolentiae was very different from that of Tertullus.
It consisted simply in the perfectly true remark that he could defend himself
all the more cheerfully before Felix from the knowledge that he had now been
Procurator for an unusual time, 6 and could therefore, from his familiarity with
Jewish affairs, easily ascertain that it was but 7 twelve days since the Pentecost,
to which feast he had come, not only with no seditious purpose, but actually
to worship in Jerusalem; and that during that time he had discoursed with no
one, and had on no occasion attracted any crowd, or caused any disturbance,
either in the Temple or in the Synagogues, or in any part of the city. He,
1 xxiv. 2, iiopSiaiiartav, , A, B, E. The other reading Karopdu^arwv is a more general
expression.
2
Jos. Anti, xx. 8, 5 5; B. J. ii. 13, 2; Euseb. H. E. ii. 2022.
8 Jos. Antt. xx. 8, 9 ; Tac. Ann. xii. 64, "quies provinciae reddita."
4 This entire clause (Acts xxiv. 6 S) is omitted from xal KOTO. down to tVi ai in
A, B, G, H, and in the Coptic, Sahidic, Latin, and other versions. If it be an interpolation,
the trap' 08 must refer to Paul, but there are great difficulties either way,
and verse 22 is in favour of their genuineness. On the other hand, if genuine, why
should the passage have been omitted? D, which has so many additions, ia here
deficient.
s Ver. 9, wvtntBtrro. K, A, B, E, G, H.
6
xxiv. 10, TroJUiv irS>v. since A.D. 52, i.e. six years. "Noii ignoravit Paulus artem
rhetorum movere laudcuido. (Grot.)
' 1. Arrival. 2. Interview with James, &c. 3 7. Vow and arrest. 8.
9, Conspiracy. 10. Arrival at Csesarea. 11, 12. In custody. 13. Trial.