We have found this man a pestilent fellow. — The Greek gives the more emphatic substantive, a pestilence, a plague. The advocate passes from flattering the judge to invective against the defendant, and lays stress on the fact that he is charged with the very crimes which Felix prided himself on repressing. St. Paul, we may well believe, did not look like a sicarius, or brigand, but Tertullus could not have used stronger language had he been caught red-handed in the fact.
A mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world. — The “world” is, of course, here, as elsewhere, the Roman empire. (See Note on Luke 2:1.) The language may simply be that of vague invective, but we may perhaps read between the lines some statements gathered, in preparing the case, from the Jews of Thessalonica (Acts 17:6) and Ephesus (Acts 21:28) who had come to keep the Feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem.
A ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. — This is the first appearance of the term of reproach as transferred from the Master to the disciples. (Comp. Note on John 1:46.) It has continued to be used by both Jews and Mahometans; and it has been stated (Smith’s Dict. of Bible, Art. “Nazarene”), that during the Indian Mutiny of 1855 the Mahometan rebels relied on a supposed ancient prophecy that the Nazarenes would be expelled from the country after ruling for a hundred years.