Acts 24:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

A pestilent fellow; a pest, or plague, the abstract being put for the concrete, as implying, that no word he could use could properly signify the mischievousness of that man, whom he falsely charges with sedition (not that the Jews would have disliked him for that, had it been true, but) to make St. Paul the more odious, and in danger of his life. The sect, or heresy, which in common use was then taken more favourably, for any doctrine. Of the Nazarenes; of the Christians; for they who out of Judea were called Christians, in Judea were called Nazarenes. The Jews did call our Saviour and his followers thus, it being accounted an ignominious term; and they who were born at Nazareth disgraced by it, as appears by Nathanael's question, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? 1 Thessalonians 1:46. Yet this name is most glorious, as imposed upon our Saviour by God himself, Matthew 2:23.