Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

SYRACUSE. Acts xxviii. 12.

The successor of Felix in the government of Palestine, was Porcius Festus, a man whose administration is by no means characterized in the history of those times by a reputation for justice or prudence; yet in the case of Paul, his conduct seems to have been much more accordant with right and reason, than was that of the truly infamous Felix. Visiting the religious capital of the Jews soon after his first entrance into the province, he was there earnestly petitioned by the ever-spiteful foes of Paul, to cause this prisoner to be brought up to Jerusalem for trial, intending when Paul should enter the city, to execute their old plan of assassination, which had been formerly frustrated by the benevolent prudence and energy of Claudius Lysias. But Festus, perhaps having received some notification of this plot, from the friends of Paul, utterly refused to bring the prisoner to Jerusalem, but required the presence of the accusers in the proper seat of the supreme provincial administration of justice at Caesarea. After a ten days’ stay in Jerusalem, he returned to the civil capital, and with a commendable activity in his judicial proceedings, on the very next day after his arrival in Caesarea, summoned Paul and his accusers before him. The Jews of course, told their old story, and brought out against Paul many grievous complaints, which they could not prove. His only reply to all this accusation without testimony was——“Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended in any particular.” But Festus having been in some way influenced to favor the designs of the Jews, urged Paul to go up to Jerusalem, there to be tried by the supreme religious court of his own nation. Paul replied by a bold and distinct assertion of his rights, as a Roman citizen, before the tribunal of his liege lord and sovran: “I stand before Caesar’s judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. If I am guilty of anything that deserves death, I refuse not to die; but if I have done none of these things of which they accuse me, no man can deliver me into their hands. I appeal to Caesar.” This solemn concluding formula put him at once far beyond the reach of all inferior tyranny; henceforth no governor in the world could direct the fate of the appellant Roman citizen, throwing before himself the adamantine aegis of Roman law. Festus himself, though evidently displeased at this turn of events, could not resist the course of law; but after a conference with this council, replied to Paul——“Dost thou appeal to Caesar? To Caesar shalt thou go.”

While Paul was still detained at Caesarea, after this final reference of his case to the highest judicial authority in the world, Festus was visited at Caesarea, by Herod Agrippa II. king of Iturea, Trachonitis, Abilene, and other northern regions of Palestine, the son of that Herod Agrippa whose character and actions were connected with the incidents of Peter’s life. He, passing through Judea with his sister Bernice, stopped at Caesarea, to pay their compliments to the new Roman governor. During their stay there, Festus, with a view to find rational entertainment for his royal guests, bethought himself of Paul’s case, as one that would be likely to interest them, connected as the prisoner’s fate seemed to be, with the religious and legal matters of that peculiar people to whom Agrippa himself belonged, and in the minutiae of whose law and theology he had been so well instructed, that his opinion on the case would be well worth having, to one as little acquainted with these matters as the heathen governor himself was. Festus therefore gave a very full account of the whole case to Agrippa, in terms that sufficiently well exhibited the perplexities in which he was involved, and in expressions which are strikingly and almost amusingly characteristic,——complaining as he does of the very abstruse and perplexing nature of the accusations brought by the Jews, as being “certain questions of their own religion, and of one Jesus, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.” Agrippa was so much interested in the case that he expressed a wish to hear the man in person; and Festus accordingly arranged that he should the next day be gratified with the hearing.

“‘King Agrippa and Bernice.’ Acts. xxv. 13. This Agrippa was the son of Herod Agrippa; St. Luke calls him king, which Josephus also does very often. (Antiquities lib. xx. c. viii. § 6, et passim.) But St. Luke does not suppose him to be king of Judaea, for all the judicial proceedings of that country relating to St. Paul, are transacted before Felix, and Festus his successor; besides, he says, that ‘Agrippa came to Caesarea to salute Festus,’ to compliment him on his arrival, &c. verse 1. When his father died, Claudius would have immediately put him in possession of his father’s dominions, but he was advised not to do so, on account of the son’s youth, then only seventeen; the emperor, therefore, ‘appointed Cuspius Fadus praefect of Judea and the whole kingdom, (Josephus Antiquities lib. xix. c. 9, ad fin.) who was succeeded by Tiberius, Alexander, Cumanus, Felix, and Festus, though these did not possess the province in the same extent that Fadus did.’ (Antiquities xx. Jewish War lib. ii.)

“Agrippa had, notwithstanding, at this time, considerable territories. ‘Herod, brother of king Agrippa the Great, died in the eighth year of the reign of Claudius. Claudius then gave his government to the young Agrippa.’ (Josephus Antiquities xx. p. 887.) This is the Agrippa mentioned in this twenty-fifth chapter. ‘The twelfth year of his reign being completed, Claudius gave to Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea, adding also Trachonitis with Abila. This had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias. But he took away from him Chalcis, after he had governed it four years.’ (Josephus Antiquities xx. p. 890, v. 25, &c.) ‘After this, he sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to be procurator of Judea, Galilee, Samaria, and Peraea; and promoted Agrippa from Chalcis to a greater kingdom, giving him the tetrarchy which had been Philip’s. (This is Batanea, and Trachonitis, and Gaulonitis;) and he added, moreover, the kingdom of Lysanias, and the province that had been Varus’s.’ (Josephus War of the Jews lib. ii. c. 12. fin.) ‘Nero, in the first year of his reign, gave Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, ordering Tiberias and Tarichaea to be subject to him. He gave him also Julias, a city of Peraea, and fourteen towns in the neighborhood of it.’ (Antiquities xx. c. 7. § 4.) St. Luke is therefore fully justified in styling this Agrippa king at this time.” (Lardner’s Credibility, 4to. Vol. I. pp. 17, 18.) [Williams’s Pearson, p. 81, 82.]

On the next day, preparations were made for this audience, with a solemnity of display most honorable to the subject of it. The great hall of the palace was arrayed in grand order for the occasion, and, in due time, king Agrippa, with his royal sister, and the Roman governor, entered it with great pomp, followed by a train composed of all the great military and civil dignitaries of the vice-imperial court of Palestine. Before all this stately array, the apostolic prisoner was now set, and a solemn annunciation was made by Festus, of the circumstances of the prisoner’s previous accusation, trial, and appeal; all which were now summarily recapitulated in public, for the sake of form, although they had before been communicated in private, to Agrippa. The king, as the highest authority present, having graciously invited Paul to speak for himself, the apostle stretched forth his hand and began, in that respectful style of elaborately elegant compliment, which characterizes the exordiums of so many of his addresses to the great. After having, with most admirable skill, conciliated the attention and kind regard of the king, by expressing his happiness in being called to speak in his own defense before one so learned in Hebrew law, he went on; and in a speech which is well known for its noble eloquence, so resplendent, even through the disguise of a quaint translation, presented not merely his own case, but the claims of that revelation, for proclaiming which he was now a prisoner. So admirably did he conduct his whole plea, both for himself and the cause of Christ, that in spite of the sneer of Festus, Agrippa paid him the very highest compliment in his power, and pronounced him to be utterly guiltless of the charges. No part of this plea and its attendant discussions, needs to be recapitulated; but a single characteristic of Paul, which is most strikingly evinced, deserves especial notice. This is his profound regard for all the established forms of polite address. He is not satisfied with a mere respectful behavior towards his judges, but even distinguishes himself by a minute observance of all the customary phrases of politeness; nor does he suffer his courtly manner to be disturbed, even by the abrupt remark of Festus, accusing him of frenzy. In his reply, he styles his accuser “Most noble;” and yet every reader of Jewish history knows, and Paul knew, that this Festus, to whom he gave this honorable title, was one of the very wicked men of those wicked times. The instance shows then, that those who, from religious scruples, refuse to give the titles of established respect to those who are elevated in station, and reject all forms of genteel address, on the same ground, have certainly constructed their system of practical religion on a model wholly different from that by which the apostle’s demeanor was guided; and the whole impression made on a common reader, by Luke’s clear statement of Paul’s behavior before the most dignified and splendid audience that he ever addressed, must be, that he was complete in all the forms and observances of polite intercourse; and he must be considered, both according to the high standard of his refined and dignified hearers, and also by the universal standard of the refined of all ages,——not only a finished, eloquent orator, but a person of polished manners, delicate tact, ready compliment, and graceful, courtly address:——in short, A PERFECT GENTLEMAN.

VOYAGE TO ROME.

As Paul, however, had previously appealed to Caesar, his case was already removed from any inferior jurisdiction, and his hearing before Agrippa was intended only to gratify the king himself, and to cause the particulars of his complicated case to be more fully drawn out before his royal hearer, who was so accomplished in Hebrew law, that his opinion was very naturally desired by Festus; for, as the governor himself confessed, the technicalities and abstruse points involved in the charge, were altogether beyond the comprehension of a Roman judge, with a mere heathen education. The object, therefore, of obtaining a full statement of particulars, to be presented to his most august majesty, the emperor, being completely accomplished by this hearing of Paul before Agrippa,——there was now nothing to delay the reference of the case to Nero; and Paul was therefore consigned, along with other prisoners of state, to the care of a Roman officer, Julius, a centurion of the Augustan cohort. Taking passage at Caesarea, in an Adramyttian vessel, Julius sailed with his important charge from the shores of Palestine, late in the year 60. Following the usual cautious course of all ancient navigators,——along the shores, and from island to island, venturing across the open sea only with the fairest winds,——the vessel which bore the apostle on his first voyage to Italy, coasted along by Syria and Asia Minor. Of those Christian associates who accompanied Paul, none are known except Timothy, Luke, his graphically accurate historian, and Aristarchus of Thessalonica, the apostle’s long-known companion in travel. These, of course, were a source of great enjoyment to Paul on this tedious voyage, surrounded, as he was, otherwise, by strangers and heathen, by most of whom he must have been regarded in the light of a mere criminal, held in bonds for trial. He was, however, very fortunate in the character of the centurion to whose keeping he was entrusted, as is shown in more than one incident related by Luke. After one day’s sail, the vessel touching at Sidon, Julius here politely gave Paul permission to visit his Christian friends in that place,——thus conferring a great favor, both on the apostle and on the church of Sidon. Leaving this place, their course was next along the coast of Syria, and then eastwards, along the southern shore of Asia Minor, keeping in the Cilician strait between that province and the great island of Cyprus, on account of the violence of the southwesters. Coasting along by Pamphylia and Lycia, they next touched at Myra, a city in the latter province, where they were obliged to take passage in another vessel, bound from Alexandria to Italy. In this vessel, they also kept close to the coast, their course being still retarded by head winds, until they reached Cnidus, the farthest southeastern point of Asia Minor, and thence stretched across the Carpathian sea, to Crete, approaching it first at Cape Salmone, the most eastern point at the island, and then passing on to a place called “the Fair Haven,” near Lasea, probably one of the hundred cities of Crete, but mentioned in no other ancient writer. At this place, Paul, whose experience in former voyages was already considerable, having been twice ship-wrecked, had sagacity enough to see that any further navigation that season would be dangerous; for it was now the beginning of October, and the most dreadful tempests might be reasonably expected on the wintry sea, before they could reach the Italian coast. He warned the centurion accordingly, of the peril to which all their lives were exposed; but the owner and commander of the vessel, anxious to find a better place for wintering than this, persuaded Julius to risk the passage to the south side of the island, when they might find, in the port of Phoenix, a more convenient winter harbor. So, after the south wind had nearly died away, they attempted to take advantage of this apparent lull, and work their way, close to the shore along the south side of Crete; but presently they were caught by a tremendous Levanter, which carried them with great velocity away to the west, to the island of Clauda, which lies south of the west end of Crete. Here the danger of the ship’s breaking in pieces was so great, that having with much ado overhauled their boat, they undergirded the ship with cables, to keep it together,——a measure not unknown in modern navigation. Finding that they were in much danger of grounding among the quicksands on the coast of the island, they were glad to stand out to sea; and taking in all sail, scudded under bare poles for fourteen days, during a great part of which time, they saw neither sun, moon nor stars, the whole sky being constantly overcast with clouds, so that they knew nothing of their position. The wind of course carried them directly west, over what was then called the sea of Adria,——not what is now called the Adriatic gulf, but that part of the Mediterranean, which lies between Greece, Italy and Africa. In their desperation, the passengers threw over their own baggage, to lighten the ship; and they began to lose all hope of being saved from shipwreck. Paul, however, encouraged them by the narration of a dream, in which God had revealed to him that every one of them should escape; and they still kept their hopes alive to the fourteenth night, when the sailors, thinking that the long western course must have brought them near Sicily, or the main-land of Italy, which lay not far out of this direction, began to heave the lead, that they might avoid the shore; and at the first sounding, found but twenty fathoms, and at the next fifteen. Of course, the peril of grounding was imminent, and they therefore cast anchor, and waited for day. Knowing that they were now near some shore, the sailors determined to provide for their own safety, and accordingly undertook to let down the boat, to make their escape, and leave the passengers to provide for themselves. But Paul represented to the centurion the certainty of their destruction, if the ship should be left without any seamen to manage it; and the soldiers of the prisoners’ guard, determined not to be thus deserted, though they should all sink together, cut off the ropes by which the boat was held, and let it fell off. All being thus inevitably committed to one doom, Paul exhorted them to take food, and thus strengthen themselves for the effort to reach the shore. They did so accordingly, and then, as a last resort, flung out the wheat with which the ship was loaded, and at day-break, when land appeared, seeing a small creek, they made an effort to run the ship into it, weighing anchor and hoisting the mainsail; but knowing nothing of the ground, soon struck, and the overstrained ship was immediately broken by the waves, the bows being fast in the sandbank, while the stern was heaved by every surge. The soldiers, thinking first of their weighty charge, for whose escape they were to answer with their lives, advised to kill them all, lest they should swim ashore. But the more humane centurion forbade it, and gave directions that every man should provide for his own safety. They did so; and those that could not swim, clinging to the fragments of the wreck, the whole two hundred and seventy-six who were in the vessel, got safe to land.

“‘When sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was already past.’ verse 9. There is no question but that this is the great fast of expiation, Leviticus xvi. 29, the description of which we have in Isaiah lviii. under the name of a sabbath, verse 13. The precise time of this sabbatic fast is on the tenth day of the seventh month, Tizri, which falls on the same time very nearly with our September, the first day of Tizri on the seventh of that, and so the 10th of Tizri on the 16th of September, that is, thirteen days before our Michaelmas. This being premised, the apostle’s reasoning becomes clear; for it is precisely the same as though he should have said, because it was past the twentieth (the day Scaliger sets for the solemnization of the fast,) of September; it being observed by all sailors, that for some weeks before and after Michaelmas, there are on the sea sudden and frequent storms, (probably the equinoctial,) which have in modern times received the name of Michaelmas flaws, and must of course make sailing dangerous. Hesiod himself tells us, that at the going down of Pleiades, which was at the end of autumn, navigation was hazardous.” (Williams.)