“When I consider this Apostle as appearing either before the witty Athenians, or before a Roman Court of Judicature, in the presence of their great men and ladies, I see how handsomely he accommodateth himself to the apprehension and temper of these politer people.”— SHAFTESBURY, Characteristics,i. 30.
THE successor of Felix was Porcius Festus (A.D. 60),1 who, though he too was probably of no higher rank than that of a freedman, was a far worthier and more honourable ruler. His Procuratorship was of very brief duration, and he inherited the government of a country in which the wildest anarchy was triumphant, and internecine quarrels were carried on in the bloodiest spirit of revenge. Had he been Procurator for a longer time, difficult as was the task to hold in the leash the furious hatreds of Jews and Gentiles, he might have accomplished more memorable results. The sacred narrative displays him in a not unfavourable light, and he at any rate contrasts most favourably with his immediate predecessor and successor, in the fact that he tried to administer real justice, and did not stain his hands with bribes.2
His first movements show an active and energetic spirit. He arrived in Palestine about the month of August, and three days after his arrival at Cæsarea went direct to Jerusalem. One of the first questions which he had to face was the mode of dealing with St. Paul. Two years of deferred hope, and obstructed purposes, and dreary imprisonment had not quenched the deadly antipathy of the Jews to the man whose free offer of the Gospel to the Gentiles seemed to them one of the most fatal omens of their impending ruin. The terrible fight in the market–place between Jews and Syrian Greeks, which had caused the disgrace of Felix, had left behind it an unappeased exasperation, and the Jews of Cæsarea were unanimous3 in demanding the immediate punishment of Paul. When Festus reached Jerusalem the same cry4 met him, and the death of Paul was demanded, not only by the mob, but by deputations of all the chief personages in Jerusalem, headed by Ishmael Ben Phabi, the new High Priest.5 We have seen already that the Jews, with great insight into human nature, eagerly seized the first opportunity of playing upon the inexperience of a newly–arrived official, and moulding him, if possible, while he was likely to be most plastic in his desire to create a favourable impression. But Festus was not one of the base and feeble Procurators who would commit a crime to win popularity. The Palestinian Jews soon found that they had to do with one who more resembled a Gallio than a Felix. The people and their priests begged him as an initial favour not to exempt Paul’s case from their cognisance, but to bring him to Jerusalem, that he might once more be tried by the Sanhedrin, when they would take care that he should cause no second fiasco by turning their theologic jealousies against each other. Indeed, these saccrdotalists, who thought far less of murder than of a ceremonial pollution,6 had taken care that if Festus once granted their petition, their hired assassins should get rid of Paul on the road “or ever he came near.” Festus saw through them sufficiently to thwart their design under the guise of a courteous offer that, as Paul was now at Cæsarea, he would return thither almost immediately, and give a full and fair audience to their complaints. On their continued insistence, Festus gave them the haughty and genuinely Roman reply that, whatever their Oriental notions of justice might be, it was not the custom of the Romans to grant any person’s life to his accusers by way of doing a favour, but to place the accused and the accusers face to face, and to give the accused a full opportunity for self–defence. The High Priest and his fellow–conspirators, finding that they could not play either on the timidity of Festus or his complaisance, had to content themselves once more with organising a powerful deputation to carry out the accusation. Eight or ten days afterwards Festus returned to the palace at Cæsarea, and the very next day took his seat on the tribunal to hear the case. The Jews had not again hired a practiced barrister to help them, and the trial degenerated into a scene of passionate clamour, in which St. Paul simply met the many accusations against him by calm denials. The Jews, tumultuously surrounding the tribunal, reiterated their accusations of heresy, sacrilege, and treason; but as not a single witness was forthcoming, Paul had no need to do more than to recount the facts. This time the Jews seem to have defined the old vague charge that Paul was a stirrer–up of sedition throughout the Diaspora, by trying to frighten Festus, as they had frightened Pilate, with the name of Cæsar;7 but Festus had too thorough a knowledge of the Roman law not to see, through all this murky storm of rage, the two plain facts, that he was trying a false issue, since the inquiry really turned on matters which affected the arcana of Jewish theology; and that even if there was a grain of truth in the Jewish accusations, Paul had not been guilty of anything approaching to a capital crime. Wishing to put an end to the scene—for nothing was more odious to the dignity of a well–trained Roman than the scowling faces, and gleaming eyes, and screaming interpellations of despised Orientals— Festus asked Paul whether he was willing to go up to Jerusalem, and be tried before the Sanhedrin under his protection.8 This was practically a proposal to transfer the question back from the Roman to the Jewish jurisdiction. But Paul knew very well that he had far more chance of justice at the hands of the Romans than at the hands of Jews, whose crimes were now dragging Jerusalem to her destruction. Jewish tribunals had invariably and even savagely condemned him; Gentile tribunals—Gallio, the Politarchs, the Asiarchs, Lysias, Felix, Festus, even the “Prætors,” at Philippi, and at last even the monster Nero— always saw and proclaimed his innocence. But he was sick of these delays; sick of the fierce reiteration of calumnies which he had ten times refuted; sick of being made the bone of contention for mutual hatreds; sick of the arbitrary caprice of provincial governors. Terrible as the black dungeon of Machærus to the free soul of the Baptist, must have been the dreary barracks of Cæsarea to the ardent zeal of Paul. How he must have hated that palace, dripping with the blood of murdered Herods, and haunted by the worst memories of their crimes! How tired he must have been of the idleness and the ribaldries of provincial soldiers, and the tumultuous noises of collision between Jews and Gentiles which were constantly resounding in those ill–managed streets. Doubtless his imprisonment had been a period of deep inward calm and growth. He knew that his course was not yet over. He was awaiting the fulfilment of God’s will. He saw that he had nothing more to hope for from High Priests or Procurators, and seized his opportunity. As a Roman citizen he had one special privilege—that right of appeal to Cæsar, which was still left as the venerable trophy of popular triumph in the struggles of centuries. He had only to pronounce the one word Appello, and every enemy would, for a time, be defeated, who was now thirsting for his blood.9 He determined to exercise his privilege. The Procurator was but a shadow of the Cæsar. His offer sounded plausibly fair, but perhaps Paul saw through it. “I am standing,” he said, “at Cæsar’s tribunal. There, and not before the Sanhedrin, I ought to be judged. Even you, O Festus! know full well that I never in any respect wronged the Jews. If I am an offender, and have committed any capital crime, it is not against them, but against the Empire; and if I am found guilty, I do not refuse to die. But if all the accusations which these bring against me are nothing, no one can sacrifice me to them as a favour.” And then he suddenly exclaimed, “Caesarem appello!”
The appeal was a surprise; even Festus, who meant well and kindly, though perhaps with a touch of natural complaisance towards his new subjects, was a little offended by it. It was not agreeable to have his jurisdiction superseded by an “appeal” to a superior on the very first occasion that he took his seat on the tribunal. Paul had not yet had time to learn his character. He might doubtless have trusted him more, if he had known him better; but matters had fallen into a hopeless imbroglio, and perhaps Paul had some inward intimation that this, at last, was God’s appointed way in which he was to visit Italy, and to bear witness at Rome.
The appeal at once put an end to all the proceedings of the court. Festus held a very brief consultation with his consiliarii—or council of his assessors—as to whether the appeal was legally admissible or not. The case was too clear to admit of much doubt under this head, and, after a moment’s delay, Festus exclaimed, in words which, however brusquely spoken, must have thrilled the heart of more than one person in that assembly, and most of all the heart of the Apostle himself, “Cæsarem appellasti; ad Cæsarem ibis.” Perhaps Festus avenged his momentarily wounded vanity by the thought, “You little know what an appeal to Cæsar means!”
Of course some days must elapse before an opportunity would occur to send Paul from Cæsarea to Italy. A ship had to be provided, and other prisoners had to be tried whom it might be necessary to remand to the Emperor’s decision. The delay was a providential one. It furnished Paul with a happy opportunity of proclaiming the truths and the arguments of Christianity in the presence of all the Jewish and Gentile magnates of the capital and of the last scions of that Idumean house of brilliant adventurers who had allied themselves with the Asmonæan princes, and worn the title of Jewish kings.
For only a day or two had elapsed after the appeal, when Agrippa II., the last of the Herods, and his sister Berenice came down to Cæsarea to pay their respects to the new Procurator. It was a compliment which they could never safely omit, and we find that they paid similar visits to each Procurator in succession. The regal power of Agrippa, such as it was, depended on no popular support, but simply and solely on the will of the Emperor. As a breath had made him first king of Chalcis (A.D. 48), then of the tetrarchy of Philip (A.D. 52), and finally of various other cities (A.D. 55), so on any day a breath might unmake him. He was not, like his father, “the king of the Jews,” and therefore St. Luke, with his usual accuracy in these details, only calls him “the king;” but as he had succeeded his uncle Herod of Chalcis in the guardianship of the Temple, with its sacred robes, and the right of nominations to the High–priesthood, he practically became a mere gilded instrument to keep order for the Romans, and it was essential for him to remain on good terms with them.10 They in their turn found it desirable to flatter the harmless vanities of a phantom royalty.
During the visit of Agrippa and Berenice to Festus, he took the opportunity of referring to the perplexing case of the prisoner Paul. He told Agrippa of the fury which seemed to inspire the whole Jewish people at the mention of his name, and of the futile results of the trial just concluded. However much the Jews might try to misrepresent the real questions at issue, it was clear that they turned on Mosaic technicalities,11 and “on one Jesus who was dead whom Paul alleged to be alive”12—matters about which Festus had no jurisdiction, and could not be supposed to know anything. The prisoner, however, had refused to be tried again by the Sanhedrin, and had appealed to the decision of the Augustus.
“I should have liked myself also to hear this person,” said Agrippa.13 Festus eagerly closed with the wish, and fixed the next day for the gratification of the king’s fancy.
It was not, as is commonly represented, a new trial. That would have been, on all grounds, impossible. Agrippa was without judicial functions, and the authority of the Procurator had been cut short by the appeal. It was more of the nature of a private or drawing–room audience—a sort of show occasion designed for the amusement of these princely guests, and the idle aristocracy of Cæsarea, both Jewish and Gentile. Festus ordered the auditorium to be prepared for the occasion, and invited all the chief officers of the army, and the principal inhabitants of the town. The Herods were fond of show, and Festus gratified their humour by a grand processional display. He would doubtless appear in his scarlet paludament, with his full attendance of lictors and body–guard, who would stand at arms behind the gilded chairs which were placed for himself and his distinguished visitors. We are expressly told that Agrippa and Berenice went in state to the Prætorium, she, doubtless, blazing with all her jewels, and he in his purple robes, and both with the golden circlets of royalty around their foreheads, and attended by a suite of followers in the most gorgeous apparel of Eastern pomp. It was a compliment to the new governor to visit him with as much splendour as possible, and both he and his guests were not sorry to furnish a spectacle which would at once illustrate their importance and their mutual cordiality. Did Agrippa think of his great–grandfather Herod, and the massacre of the innocents? of his great–uncle Antipas, and the murder of John the Baptist? Of his father Agrippa I., and the execution of James the Elder? Did he recall the fact that they had each died or been disgraced, soon after, or in direct consequence of, those inflictions of martyrdom? Did he realise how closely, but unwittingly, the faith in that “one Jesus” had been linked with the destinies of his house? Did the pomp of to–day remind him of the pomp sixteen years earlier, when his much more powerful father had stood in the theatre, with the sunlight blazing on the tissued silver of his robe, and the people shouting that he was a god?14 Did none of the dark memories of the place overshadow him as he entered that former palace of his race? It is very unlikely. Extreme vanity, gratified self–importance, far more probably absorbed the mind of this titular king, as, in all the pomp of phantom sovereignty, he swept along the large open hall, seated himself with his beautiful sister by the Procurator’s side, and glanced with cold curiosity on the poor, worn, shackled prisoner—pale with sickness and long imprisonment—who was led in at his command.
Festus opened the proceedings in a short, complimentary speech, in which he found an excuse for the gathering, by saying that on the one hand the Jews were extremely infuriated against this man, and that on the other he was entirely innocent, so far as he could see, of any capital crime. Since, however, he was a Roman citizen, and had appealed to Cæsar, it was necessary to send to “the Lord”15 some minute of the case, by way of elogium, and he was completely perplexed as to what he ought to say. He was, therefore, glad of the opportunity to bring the prisoner before this distinguished assembly, that they, and especially King Agrippa, might hear what he had to say for himself, and so, by forming some sort of preliminary judgment, relieve Festus from the ridiculous position of sending a prisoner without being able to state any definite crime with which he had been charged.
As no accusers were present, and this was not in any respect a judicial assembly, Agrippa, as the person for whom the whole scene was got up, told Paul that he was allowed to speak about himself. Had the Apostle been of a morose disposition he might have despised the hollowness of these mock proceedings. Had he been actuated by any motives lower than the highest, he might have seized the opportunity to flatter himself into favour in the absence of his enemies. But the predominant feature in his, as in the very greatest characters, was a continual seriousness and earnestness, and his only desire was to plead not his own cause, but that of his Master. Festus, with the Roman adulation, which in that age outran even the appetite of absolutism, had used that title of “the Lord,” which the later Emperors seized with avidity, but which the earliest and ablest of them had contemptuously refused.16 But Paul was neither imposed upon by these colossal titles of reverence, nor daunted by these pompous inanities of reflected power.
There is not a word of his address which does not prove how completely he was at his ease. The scarlet sagum of the Procurator, the fasces of the lictors, the swords of the legionaries, the gleaming armour of the Chiliarchs, did not for one moment daunt him,—they were a terror, not to good works but to the evil; and he felt that his was a service which was above all sway.
Stretching out his hand in the manner familiar to the orators whom he had often heard in Tarsus or in Antioch,17 he began by the sincere remark that he was particularly happy to make his defence before King Agrippa, not—which would have been false—for any special worth of his, but because the prince had received from his father— whose anxiety to conform to the Law, both written and oral, was well known—an elaborate training in all matters of Jewish religion and casuistry which could not fail to interest him in a question of which he was so competent to judge. He begged, therefore, for a patient audience, and narrated once more the familiar story of his conversion from the standpoint of a rigid and bigoted Pharisee to a belief that the Messianic hopes of his nation had now been actually fulfilled in that Jesus of Nazareth, whose followers he had at first furiously persecuted, but who had won him, by a personal revelation of His glory, to the knowledge that He had risen from the dead. Why should that belief appear incredible to his hearers? It once had been so to himself; but how could he resist the eye–witness of a noonday vision? and how could he disobey the heavenly voice which sent him forth to open the eyes both of Jews and Gentiles that they might turn from darkness to light and the power of Satan unto God, that, by faith in Jesus, they might receive remission of sins and a lot among the sanctified? He had not been disobedient to it. In Damascus, in Jerusalem, throughout all Judæa, and subsequently among the Gentiles, he had been a preacher of repentance and conversion towards God, and a life consistent therewith. This was why the Jews had seized him in the Temple and tried to tear him to pieces; but in this and every danger God had helped him, and the testimony which he bore to small and great was no blasphemy, no apostasy, but simply a truth in direct accordance with the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, that the Messiah should be liable to suffering, and that from His resurrection from the dead a light should dawn to lighten both the Gentiles and His people.
Paul was now launched on the full tide of that sacred and impassioned oratory which was so powerful an agent in his mission work. He was delivering to kings and governors and chief captains that testimony which was the very object of his life. Whether on other topics his speech was as contemptible as his enemies chose to represent, we cannot say; but on this topic, at any rate, he spoke with the force of long familiarity, and the fire of intense conviction. He would probably have proceeded to develop the great thesis which he had just sketched in outline—but at this point he was stopped short. These facts and revelations were new to Festus. Though sufficiently familiar with true culture to recognise it even through these Oriental surroundings, he could only listen open–mouthed to this impassioned tale of visions, and revelations, and ancient prophecies, and of a Jewish Prophet who had been crucified, and yet had risen from the dead and was Divine, and who could forgive sins and lighten the darkness of Jews as well as of Gentiles. He had been getting more and more astonished, and the last remark was too much for him. He suddenly burst out with the loud and excited interruption, “You are mad, Paul;18 those many writings are turning your brain.” His startling ejaculation checked the majestic stream of the Apostle’s eloquence, but did not otherwise ruffle his exquisite courtesy. “I am not mad,” he exclaimed with calm modesty, giving to Festus his recognised title of “your Excellency;” “but I am uttering words of reality and soberness.” But Festus was not the person whom he was mainly addressing, nor were these the reasonings which he would be likely to understand. It was different with Agrippa. He had read Moses and the Prophets, and had heard, from multitudes of witnesses, some at least of the facts to which Paul referred. To him, therefore, the Apostle appealed in proof of his perfect sanity. “The king,” he said, “knows about these things, to whom it is even with confidence that I am addressing my remarks. I am sure that he is by no means unaware of any of these circumstances, for all that I say has not been done in a corner.” And then, wishing to resume the thread of his argument at the point where it had been broken, and where it would be most striking to a Jew, he asked—
“King Agrippa, dost thou believe the Prophets? I know that thou believest.”
But Agrippa did not choose to be entrapped into a discussion, still less into an assent. Not old in years, but accustomed from his boyhood to an atmosphere of cynicism and unbelief, he could only smile with the good–natured contempt of a man of the world at the enthusiastic earnestness which could even for a moment fancy that he would be converted to the heresy of the Nazarenes with their crucified Messiah! Yet he did not wish to be uncourteous. It was impossible not to admire the burning zeal which neither stripes nor prisons could quench—the clear–sighted faith which not even such a surrounding could for a moment dim.
“You are trying to persuade me offhand to be ‘a Christian!’”19 he said, with a half–suppressed smile; and this finished specimen of courtly eutrapelia was his bantering answer to St. Paul’s appeal. Doubtless his polished remark on this compendious style of making converts sounded very witty to that distinguished company, and they would with difficulty suppress their laughter at the notion that Agrippa, favourite of Claudius, friend of Nero, King of Chalcis, Ituræa, Trachonitis, nominator of the High Priest, and supreme guardian of the Temple treasures, should succumb to the potency of this “short method with a Jew.” That a Paul should make the king a Christian (!) would sound too ludicrous. But the laugh would be instantly suppressed in pity and admiration of the poor but noble prisoner, as with perfect dignity he took advantage of Agrippa’s ambiguous expression, and said, with all the fervent sincerity of a loving heart, “I could pray to God that whether ‘in little’ or ‘in much,’20 not thou only, but even all who are listening to me to–day might become even such as I am—except,” he added, as he raised his fettered hand— “except these bonds.” They saw that this was indeed no common prisoner; one who could argue as he had argued, and speak as he had spoken; one who was so filled with the exaltation of an inspiring idea, so enriched with the happiness of a firm faith and a peaceful conscience, that he could tell them how he prayed, that they all—all these princely and distinguished people—could be even such as he—and who yet in the spirit of entire forgiveness desired that the sharing in his faith might involve no share in his sorrows or misfortunes—must be such a one as they never yet had seen or known, either in the worlds of Jewry or of heathendom. But it was useless to prolong the scene. Curiosity was now sufficiently gratified, and it had become clearer than ever that though they might regard Paul the prisoner as an amiable enthusiast or an inspired fanatic, he was in no sense a legal criminal. The king, by rising from his seat, gave the signal for breaking up the meeting; Berenice and Festus, and their respective retinues, rose up at the same time, and as the distinguished assembly dispersed they were heard remarking on all sides that Paul was undeserving of death, or even of imprisonment. He had made, in fact, a deeply favourable impression. Agrippa’s decision was given entirely for his acquittal. “This person,” he said to Festus, “might have been permanently set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Cæsar.” Agrippa was far too little of a Pharisee, and far too much of a man of the world, not to see that mere freedom of thought could not be, and ought not to be, suppressed by external violence. The proceedings of that day probably saved St. Paul’s life full two years afterwards. Festus, since his own opinion, on grounds of Roman justice, was so entirely confirmed from the Jewish point of view by the Protector of the Temple, could hardly fail to send to Nero an elogium which freely exonerated the prisoner from every legal charge; and even if Jewish intrigues were put in play against him, Nero could not condemn to death a man whom Felix, and Lysias, and Festus, and Agrippa, and even the Jewish Sanhedrin, in the only trial of the case which they had held, had united in pronouncing innocent of any capital crime.