CRITICAL REMARKS
Acts 24:1. After five days.—Reckoned from Paul’s departure from Jerusalem (Kuinoel, Meyer, De Wette, Hackett, Alford, Plumptre), though some (Holtzmann, Lechler, Zöckler, Olshausen, and others) prefer to count from Paul’s arrival at Cæsarea. The former agrees better with the statement that twelve days had elapsed since his arrival in Jerusalem (Acts 24:11). The elders.—I.e., the Sanhedrists, who were probably represented by certain of their number. The oldest authorities read “some of the elders “which, however, has the appearance of being a correction (Hackett, Alford, Lechler). A certain orator, rhetorician, or advocate, acquainted with the forms of Roman law, which were not understood by the people of the provinces, who therefore had to employ such barristers or rhetoricians (=oratores forenses or causidici publici) to plead for them before Roman tribunals. Tertullus.—A. diminutive from Tertius. Probably a Roman. Had the trial been conducted in Latin, which cannot be proved, Luke would most likely have noted it (compare Acts 22:2). Who.—I.e., not Tertullus, but Ananias and the elders through him. Informed the governor against Paul.—I.e., lodged their complaint against him.
Acts 24:2. Called forth.—Or, simply called. After the charges against him had been lodged, and before the evidence was produced. Roman law secured that no prisoner should be condemned without hearing and having an opportunity to answer the indictment preferred against him (see Acts 25:16). Tertullus’s indictment, which consisted of three charges—sedition, heresy, and sacrilege, or profanation of the temple (see Acts 24:5-6)—was prefaced by the most undisguised flattery, in the hope of inducing Felix to condemn Paul. Great quietness, or much peace.—“The administration of Felix did not present much opening for panegyric, but he had at least taken strong measures to put down the gangs of Sicarii and brigands by whom Palestine was infested (Jos., Ant., XX. viii. 5; Wars, II. xiii. 2), and Tertullus shows his skill in the emphasis which he lays on “quietness.” By a somewhat interesting coincidence, Tacitus (Ann., xii. 54), after narrating the circumstances caused by a quarrel between Felix, backed by the Samaritans, and Ventidius Cumanus, who had been appointed as governor of Galilee, ends his statement by relating that Felix was supported by Quadratus, the president of Syria “et quies provinciæ reddita” (Plumptre). For very worthy deeds, κατορθωμάτων—i.e., things successfully achieved, the best MSS. read διορθωμάτων, improvements, emendations, betterments—i.e., corrections of evil (R.V.). How much truth there was in this the statement of Josephus (Ant., XX. viii. 9) shows, that after his removal from office “the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cæsarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix,” and that “he had certainly been brought to punishment unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitation of his brother Pallas, who was at that time had in the greatest honour by him.” By thy providence.—“Tuâ providentiâ, providentia Cæsaris, is a common inscription on the coins of the emperors” (Spence).
Acts 24:3. Always and in all places are better connected with “accept” (Hackett, Zöckler) than with “done” (Holtzmann, Wendt, Besser). Most noble Felix, κράτιστε Φῆλιξ: compare κράτιστε Θεόφιλε (Luke 1:3).
Acts 24:4. A few words refer not to the flattering preamble (Meyer), but to the subsequent plea.
Acts 24:5. A pestilent fellow.—Better, a pest, or plague; used as in English. The world meant the Roman empire. The sect of the Nazarenes.—A contemptuous expression, for the first time transferred from the Master to the disciples (compare Acts 2:22, Acts 6:14; John 1:46). The name is still applied to Christians by Jews and Mohammedans. During the Indian Mutiny of 1855 the Mohammedan rebels, it is said (Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible: art. Nazarene), relied on a supposed ancient prophecy that the Nazarenes would be expelled from the country after ruling for a hundred years.
Acts 24:6. Who also hath gone about or assayed to profane the temple.—Shows that the original charge had been modified (see Acts 21:28). Whom we took or laid hold of.—Through the change of construction at “whom” the preceding participial clause (Acts 24:5) becomes an anakolouthon. The remaining words of this verse, with Acts 24:7 and first part of Acts 24:8, are omitted in the most approved texts. It is difficult to perceive why they should either have been inserted or left out. If genuine they show that Tertullus, instructed by the Sanhedrim, who were exceeding bitter against Lysias, wished to turn the tables against him by suggesting that had it not been for his interference the whole matter would have been disposed of without troubling the governor. Would have judged according to our law.—Does not square well with the facts as related in Acts 21:31, Acts 26:21.
Acts 24:7. Represents Lysias as having rescued Paul with great violence, which also scarcely comports with truth (Acts 21:32).
Acts 24:8. Whom.—Has for antecedent Paul, if the intermediate clauses be rejected; but either the accusers (as the A.V. suggests), or more probably Lysias (as the Greek text indicates), if the clauses be retained.
Acts 24:9. A better reading than assented, συνέθεντο, is assailed him at the same time, or joined in assailing him, συνεπέθεντο, by asserting that the charges were true.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.
Acts 24:1-9. The Indictment of Tertullus: or, the Vapid Eloquence of a Heathen Lawyer
I. The judge upon the bench.—
1. His name. Felix. “One of the worst of Roman officials” (Ramsay). See on Acts 23:24.
2. His dignity. Governor of the province of Judæa. Representative of Roman law and justice. Who should therefore have treated Paul with strictest equity—which he did not.
3. His character. Immoral, tyrannical, covetous, unjust. The opposite to that ascribed to him by Tertullus (see “Homiletical Analysis” on Acts 23:23-35).
II. The prisoner at the bar.—Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, who had just been rescued from the violent hands of his countrymen, and who was now to be impeached in their name on three serious charges, of every one of which he was innocent. Had his countrymen only known they might have said, with perfect truthfulness, “This is the noblest Roman of them all.” Looking back upon his great career, impartial posterity can testify—
“His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world—This was a man!”
—SHAKESPEARE, Julius Cæsar, Act v., Sc. 5.
III. The prosecutors and their indictment.—
1. The prosecutors were Ananias the high priest (see Acts 23:2), and the elders who had come down from Jerusalem to Cæsarea for the purpose of accusing Paul before the governor. Their state of mind may be imagined from the circumstance that they had, five days before, conspired with forty ruffians to assassinate the apostle, who only escaped their toils by a specially providential deliverance.
2. The indictment they were prepared to move against him consisted of three counts.
(1) Sedition. They alleged that the prisoner at the bar was a pestilent fellow, and a mover of seditions among all the Jews throughout the world—an old charge, which had been preferred against the apostle at Thessalonica (Acts 17:6-7), which had never been established, and which was absolutely false.
(2) Heresy. They accused the prisoner at the bar of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, by which phrase they sought to pour contempt upon the followers of Christ, because of His supposed birth at Nazareth, which, in their judgment, stamped Him as a false Messiah. This charge the apostle did not seek to deny (Acts 24:14).
(3) Sacrilege. They accused him of having profaned the temple. They asserted, not as they had done before (Acts 21:28), that Paul had desecrated the holy place, but that he had attempted to do so, by introducing within its precincts Trophimus, the Ephesian—which the narrative shows he had not done.
IV. The advocate and his oration.—
1. The advocate. Tertullus by name, a diminutive from Tertius, was a Roman lawyer or rhetorician, whose trade it was to plead in courts of law throughout the empire. He was probably
(1) a person of considerable talent, else his services would not have been sought by the Sanhedrim, though if he was, his genius and eloquence might easily have been employed in a better cause than seeking the conviction of an innocent man. He was certainly
(2) a man of untruthful character, since he not only openly and unblushingly flattered the judge, in the hope of carrying his suit, but most likely also knowingly misrepresented the facts of the case he had in hand (if the clause about Lysias be retained). And in any case
(3) his employment by the Sanhedrim was a melancholy proof of the unspirituality of that high court, that it called in a heathen orator to help their bad cause by his crafty speech (Besser). This, remarks Bengel, is the only place in the whole of sacred Scripture in which the name of the orator is to be found. “The preachers of God,” adds Besser, “are not reciters of learned words, but witnesses of revealed things. The orator Tertullus steps forward to help the Godless Jews in place of the absent Holy Spirit.”
2. The oration which Tertullus pronounced consisted of three parts—flattery, falsehood, and misrepresentation.
(1) The flattery was offered as fragrant incense to the judge, to intoxicate his senses, becloud his understanding, pervert his judgment, and captivate his will. Felix was actually invited to believe that in the estimation of his admiring and devoted subjects he had been a veritable pacator provinciæ—yea, a kind of little god, through whose benign providence the welfare of his dependents had been highly advanced, and whose gracious clemency the speaker humbly entreated while intruding on his awful majesty with a few more words. It showed Tertullus to be far from a bungler at his trade that he contrived so smoothly to slide over “the difficult narration of the procurator’s misdeeds,” and to convert what was abominable cruelty into gracious clemency; and considering how dearly most men love to be flattered, when “the candied tongue” is not too apparent, one wonders that Tertullus did not meet with more success. Either there was in Felix, after all, some fragment of a noble manhood which taught him to despise the compliments he knew to be as insincere as they were undeserved, or there was a loftiness of thought and speech in Paul’s defence which completely neutralised the effect of the heathen lawyer’s rhetoric.
(2) The falsehood consisted in the repetition of the threefold charge of sedition, heresy, and sacrilege, which had been put into his mouth by the high priest and his unprincipled confederates. That Paul, who preached the gospel of peace and showed to men the way of salvation, promoted civil tumults and social revolutions, though an old charge (Acts 17:7), was as ridiculous as it was untrue (compare Romans 13:1). That he was chargeable with heresy or schism could only be maintained by those who knew themselves to be in innermost accord with the truth, which Ananias and Tertullus were not—else, alas! for the truth. If to be a ringleader among the Nazarenes, as the Christians were then beginning to be styled (see Critical Remarks) was to be a heretic—which, however, Paul denied (Acts 24:14)—then undoubtedly their allegation was true, and no lie. That he had attempted to desecrate the holy place by bringing Trophimus within its precincts strayed as widely from the truth as the assertion that he had actually committed this unholy deed. Well might Paul have exclaimed as he listened to the glowing periods of the orator—
“O hateful error …
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not!”
—SHAKESPEARE, Julius Cæsar, Act v., Sc. 3.
(3) The misrepresentation lay in this, that Tertullus, instructed presumably by his employers, endeavoured to lay the blame of this intrusion on the noble Felix’s leisure on Lysias, the commandant of the Castle of Antonia, who, said the orator, stating incorrectly what had taken place, had pounced down upon the Sanhedrim and violently torn Paul from their hands when they were peacefully attempting to judge him according to their law. Whether Tertullus believed his own story may be doubted; that Felix did not, especially after hearing Paul’s defence, is almost certain—even though it was backed up by the strong asseverations of the high priest and the elders that the charges preferred against Paul, and the statements relative to Lysias, were correct.
Learn—
1. The badness of the cause that cannot establish itself without the help of worldly Wisdom
2. The weakness of the indictment that needs to be prefaced by flattering the Judges 3. The exaggeration which characterises the most of the world’s charges against Christians.
4. The violence which accusers commonly exhibit when they feel that they have no case.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Acts 24:1. One Tertullus.
I. An obscure man providentially lifted into doubtful fame. Better for his reputation and character it would have been had he never emerged from the oblivion into which he had been born.
II. A lawyer, not without ability, employed in a bad cause.—His legal knowledge and forensic eloquence might easily have been consecrated to a nobler task than prosecuting Paul.
III. An undisguised flatterer, whose honeyed words were seen through.—Most men who use this contemptible weapon expect to succeed by it. So, doubtless, did Tertullus; but he did not.
IV. A paid advocate, who lost his cause.—From whatever motive, Felix, if he swallowed the flattery, did not condemn the apostle.
Acts 24:5. The Sect of the Nazarenes; or the value of nicknames.—This appellation, like those applied to Christ—“The Nazarene,” “Friend of Publicans and Sinners,” etc., defeated its own end, which was to overwhelm the early Christians with shame and contempt. On the contrary, it was—
I. The confirmation of a valuable historical truth.—Viz., that Christ was brought up at Nazareth.
II. The recognition of what to them who uttered it must have been an unpleasant fact—Viz., that the cause which Jesus of Nazareth represented had not been extinguished by the crucifixion, but had, since that appalling tragedy, increased its hold upon the minds of the community.
III. The publication of what those against whom it was directed counted their highest honour.—Viz., that they were followers of the Nazarene. To this day the name of the Nazarene stands highest among the sons of men, and no commendation can be more acceptable to a sincere Christian than the suggestion that he is worthy of the name he bears.
Acts 24:2-5. Mistaken Judgments.
I. Bad men are often credited with good deeds they never do.—Witness Felix, whom Tertullus lauded as a peace-maker and social reformer.
II. Good men are as often blamed for evil deeds of which they are entirely innocent.—For instance, Paul, who was charged by Tertullus with being “a mover of insurrections,” “a heretic” and “a profaner of the temple.”
III. These mistaken judgments, though considered just at man’s tribunals, are all wrong at God’s, and will eventually be reversed.