Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
At the demand of the Jews, Festus asks Paul whether he wishes to plead his case at Jerusalem. He refuses and appeals to Caesar at Rome. Festus, before sending Paul to Caesar, asks King Agrippa to hear him and to suggest what should be done with him.
Vulgate Text: Acts 25:1-27
1. Festus therefore, when he had come into the province, after three days went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem. 2. And the chief priests and the leading men of the Jews approached him against Paul, and besought him, 3. asking a favor against him, that he would order him to be brought to Jerusalem, laying snares to kill him on the way. 4. But Festus answered that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would soon set out. 5. Therefore (he said) let those of you who are influential go down with me, and if there be any crime in the man, let them accuse him. 6. After spending among them no more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day sat upon the tribunal, and ordered Paul to be brought. 7. When he had been brought, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, alleging many and grave charges which they could not prove. 8. Paul giving his defense: Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I sinned in anything. 9. But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, answering Paul said: Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before me? 10. But Paul said: I stand at Caesar's tribunal, where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you very well know. 11. For if I have done wrong, or have done anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die: but if there is nothing in those things of which they accuse me, no man may deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar. 12. Then Festus, having conferred with the council, replied: You have appealed to Caesar: to Caesar you shall go. 13. And when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice came down to Caesarea to greet Festus. 14. And when they had stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king, saying: A certain man has been left here in chains by Felix, 15. concerning whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and elders of the Jews appeared before me, asking judgment against him. 16. To whom I answered: It is not the custom of the Romans to condemn any man before he who is accused has his accusers present, and is given a place to defend himself for clearing the charges. 17. When therefore they had assembled here, without any delay, on the next day, sitting on the tribunal, I commanded the man to be brought. 18. Concerning whom, when his accusers stood up, they brought no charges of those crimes I had suspected: 19. but they had certain questions against him about their own superstition, and about one Jesus, deceased, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. 20. Being myself uncertain about a question of this kind, I asked whether he would go to Jerusalem and be judged there about these matters. 21. But when Paul appealed to be kept for the cognizance of Augustus, I ordered him to be kept until I might send him to Caesar. 22. Then Agrippa said to Festus: I myself also wished to hear the man. Tomorrow, said he, you shall hear him. 23. On the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with much pomp and had entered the audience hall with the tribunes and the leading men of the city, by order of Festus, Paul was brought in. 24. And Festus said: King Agrippa, and all you men who are present here with us, you see this man, about whom the whole multitude of the Jews petitioned me at Jerusalem, demanding and crying out that he ought not to live any longer. 25. But I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death. He himself, however, having appealed to Augustus, I have decided to send him. 26. Concerning whom I have nothing certain to write to my lord. Therefore I have brought him before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, that, the examination being made, I might have something to write. 27. For it seems unreasonable to me to send a prisoner and not to signify the charges against him.
Verse 1: Festus Therefore When He Had Come Into the Province
1. Festus therefore when he had come into the province. — The Tigurine version, Festus therefore having taken up the province, that is, the care and rule of the province, namely Judea; he did this by going to Caesarea: for this was the capital of the province, if you regard the Romans; but if the Jews, the capital was Jerusalem; whence Festus soon went up there.
Verse 3: Asking a Favor Against Him
3. Asking a favor, — not justice: for this they had attempted in vain at the tribunal, before the tribune and Felix, since Paul clearly demonstrated the justice and innocence of his cause even to his enemies themselves. Again they ask a favor, namely that Paul, whom the tribune had sent from Caesarea on account of the snares of the Jews, should be sent back to Jerusalem, that they might lay new snares for him. For it is customary that some favor be asked of governors and princes when they first take up office or are inaugurated. The Jews here ask nothing other than the death of Paul. See how greatly they esteem Paul, that is, how great an enemy of Judaism and what a defender (hyperaspistes) of Christianity they reckon him, in that, when they could and ought to ask many far greater things bearing on the public good, omitting these they ask for the one head of Paul. Thus envying the glory of Paul, without knowing it they greatly celebrate it. Truly Nazianzen, in the Monosticha:
It is a pleasing thing to be envied: but to envy is a vast disgrace.
Verse 4: But Festus Answered That Paul Was Kept in Caesarea
4. But Festus answered that Paul was kept in Caesarea. — Festus refused the petition of the Jews about summoning Paul to Jerusalem, either because from his face, voice and gesture he saw the malevolence of the Jews against Paul; or because he had heard of the snares laid against him by the Jews; or because the governor's tribunal was at Caesarea, whither accordingly he himself was hastening.
Verse 5: Those Who Are Able Among You
5. Are able — to make the journey, as if to say: Those who can set out and complete so great a journey (of three days). Otherwise Hugo and Vatablus, as if to say: Those who can without inconvenience to their affairs, namely those for whom it is convenient, go to Caesarea. Secondly, "powerful," that is, strong orators, or accusers eloquent in tongue, and armed with weighty arguments to accuse and convict Paul. For these are called δυνατοί, and this properly suits the present matter.
If there be any crime in the man. — For "crime," in Greek it is ἄτοπον, that is, absurd, unusual, unbecoming, infamous.
Verse 7: Many and Grievous Charges
7. Grievous causes — αἰτιώματα, that is, charges or accusations; so the Tigurine, Pagninus and others.
Verse 9: Will You Go Up to Jerusalem?
9. Will you go up to Jerusalem? — He does not order, but asks. For it would have been impudent had he ordered, and led him away to a place where he had not been refuted, says Chrysostom, especially because Paul was a Roman citizen and stood at Caesarea at the tribunal of Roman Caesar: for the Roman governor reverences the Roman name in the accused, says Hugo.
Verse 10: I Stand at Caesar's Tribunal
10. I stand at Caesar's tribunal. — As if to say: Caesar has his tribunal, which you now occupy in his stead, O Festus, here at Caesarea, as in the metropolis of the province; there therefore I ought to be judged, not at Jerusalem. Moreover the Roman Kings and Emperors were called Caesars from Julius Caesar, who first seized the empire, and was called Caesar from his family. For the family of the Caesars was added to the Julii, who descended from Julius Ascanius, son of Aeneas, according to that line of Virgil, Aeneid VI:
Julius, a name handed down from great Iulus.
Now "Caesar" was originally so called either from blue-grey eyes (caesii oculi), or from the head of hair (caesaries) with which he was born, or from a cut-open womb of the mother (caeso utero), and such children for that reason were called caesones and are said to be born under more auspicious omens than those who are born feet-first, as Pliny asserts, book VII, ix; and that for this reason Scipio Africanus the elder was surnamed Caesar. But Spartianus and Servius say that the first who was called Caesar was the grandfather of Julius Caesar, who in Africa killed an elephant: for the elephant in the Punic tongue was called caesar. Certainly Julius Caesar, from whom the family and nomenclature of the Caesars is propagated, was not born from a cut-open mother's womb, for he had a mother, Aurelia, whom he lost while waging war in Gaul. Add: his father also was named Caesar, who having served as praetor died at Pisa.
Furthermore, he himself propagated this name to his descendants, on account of the splendor and glory of the things he accomplished, which many followed but none attained. For he himself reduced into the form of a province in nine years all of Gaul, which is bounded by the Pyrenean range, the Alps, and the Rhone and Rhine. He himself, the first of the Romans, having built a bridge, invaded and subdued the Germans dwelling beyond the Rhine. He himself conquered the Britons, previously unknown. He himself in Italy occupied Picenum, Umbria, and Etruria. He himself attacked the most powerful forces of Pompey which were in Spain under three lieutenants, M. Petreius, S. Afranius and M. Varro. In Macedonia he overcame Pompey, in Egypt Ptolemy, in Pontus Pharnaces, in Africa Scipio and Juba, in Spain the sons of Pompey, and that very swiftly, like a thunderbolt overrunning and laying low everything, so that he deservedly assumed for himself this boast: "I saw, I came, I conquered." He triumphed five times: first over Gaul, then over Alexandria, third over Pontus, fourth over Africa, fifth over Spain. Finally, he was the first to subdue and possess Pompey, the Senate, Rome and the whole Empire. Moreover, he was extremely generous, especially after these triumphs: thus Suetonius in his Life. Wherefore Julius Caesar is celebrated by a recent poet in these encomia:
Light and father of the Caesars,
the Roman Alexander, the Mars of the earth;
having conquered the world, he conquered the city victorious over the world.
He punished an ungrateful country with its own paternal arms.
He conquered her unwillingly, by whom he lived unwilled.
Indeed he seems to have been a prodigy of nature, genius, prudence, fortitude, and good fortune; and so God by him converted the Roman aristocracy into a monarchy, that He might prepare the way for Christ the supreme Monarch, soon to be born, and would subject to Himself the whole world — already brought, as it were, by Julius into a monarchy — through St. Peter the Roman Pontiff and Constantine the Roman Emperor.
For Tacitus truly said, book 1: "One body of the republic must be ruled by the mind of one." And Thucydides, book VI: "The rule of many is a disordered thing." And Homer, Iliad II, and from him Aristotle, book XII of the Metaphysics: "Not good is the rule of many; let there be one king." More truly St. Leo, sermon 1 On the Nativity of Sts. Peter and Paul: "When the twelve Apostles," he says, "had undertaken to imbue the world with the Gospel, with the parts of the earth distributed among them, the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostolic order, is destined for the citadel of the Roman empire, that the light of truth which was revealed for the salvation of all nations might more effectively pour itself from the very head through the whole body of the world": that is, as the same writer says in the same place, "that the universal preaching might quickly have access to as many peoples as the rule of one city held."
There I must be judged. — He cautiously says that he ought to be judged before Caesar, not however that Caesar was his proper judge, because Paul's proper judge and superior was St. Peter; but because the Jews and Roman Gentiles did not acknowledge him, hence Paul, accused by the Jews before the Roman governors, had to plead his case before them. For the Romans had subjugated Judea and the Jews to themselves and ruled them. Add: in civil matters, the Apostles and ecclesiastics in those first times of the Church had to obey the civil magistrate, as Paul implies, Rom. xiii, and as in the same place St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and St. Thomas expressly teach. For ecclesiastical exemption and immunity had not yet been introduced, which the Popes and Ecumenical Councils sanctioned in later ages, and which Christian kings and princes approved and conceded. For since they themselves are sheep and subjects of the Pontiffs, it is not fitting that they themselves judge their Pastors and Superiors, even in civil matters. But in the time of Paul the princes were Gentiles, not Christians, who would in no way have endured the Apostles being exempted from their jurisdiction. Wherefore the Apostles voluntarily submitted to them, lest they give scandal to unbelievers, or stir up the princes against themselves and the faithful. See Lessius, book II De Justitia, chap. xxxiii De tributis et vectigalibus, doubt 4; and Bellarmine, book II De Romano Pontifice, chap. xxix.
Finally, Paul, having suffered violence from the Jews, lawfully implored the aid of Caesar, since he had no other tribunal and remedy for protecting himself and his life, as St. Augustine teaches, Epistle 50. St. Athanasius imitated Paul: oppressed by the Arians, he implored the aid of Constantius, the Arian Emperor. For in his Apology to Constantius he says: "If I had been accused before others, I would have appealed to your Majesty, as the Apostle said: I appeal to Caesar, and there was a cessation of plots against him."
To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you very well know. — "Better" than that, for the sake of fuller knowledge, it should be necessary for you to go to Jerusalem and there investigate my cause and judge me. Lysias, Felix, and others have testified to you of my innocence. You have come to know the same thing from the turbulent accusation of the Jews, in which they could prove nothing, and from my prudent and true defense: therefore you know it well enough.
Verse 11: I Do Not Refuse to Die — I Appeal to Caesar
11. I do not refuse to die. — Note the sincere and undaunted spirit and voice of Paul: he so far does not decline the law and the tribunal that, if he has sinned at all against it, he willingly offers himself to punishment and death.
No man may deliver me to them. — He tacitly rebukes the Governor, that, hanging too much on the favor of the Jews, he wished to judge Paul at Jerusalem. For this would have been to hand him over to the Jews: both because they themselves were preparing snares for Paul on the way, as appears in verse 3; and because at Jerusalem they would conspire against him with common zeal, contriving so many and such great things against him, that he could not have escaped from their hands.
I appeal to Caesar. — The Syriac, "I invoke the protection of Caesar." Paul appealed to Caesar for these reasons: first, because he was caring not for his own life, but for the Church, says St. Augustine, Epistle 58. Second, because the Jews had accused him as seditious and disturbing the rights of Caesar. Hence St. Chrysostom notes the marvellous generosity of Paul, by which he wishes to be judged before the very one whom he was accused of having injured. Third, because he had received an oracle from God, chap. xxiii, verse 11, that he would evangelize at Rome: he therefore seizes a fitting occasion of this by appealing to Caesar, knowing this is what God wills, and therefore that the success of this appeal would be in God's care and heart. Fourth, because by continual experience Paul had learned that he would nowhere and never be safe in Judea, nor would he escape the snares and hands of the Jews: therefore he appeals to Rome and Caesar. Fifth, that by this appeal he might gain the favor of Caesar, namely Nero, and reconcile him to himself and to the Christians: or certainly, if he were condemned by him, that he might fall gloriously as a martyr at Rome on the world's stage. For, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus truly says, book II: "Either a free life, or a glorious death must be chosen." The principal reason was to avoid the snares of the Jews. For St. Gregory Nazianzen prudently in his Sentences: "The wise man," he says, "avoids all grave and dangerous things, just as a pilot avoids storms." The same to Bosphorius, Epistle 49, or according to others 15: "He is mad who strikes against the same stone twice." And Thucydides, book I: "It is better to anticipate snares than to lay snares against those laying snares." And Demosthenes, Philippic 1: "The opportunities of affairs do not wait for our slowness and sloth." And Seneca: "The wise man never provokes the wrath of the powerful, but rather avoids it, no otherwise than a storm in navigating."
Moreover, a recent poet has painted Nero in these colors:
He was the best among private men, the worst among princes.
Worthy of kingship, had he not reigned.
His soft manners hardened in hard things, hardened in softness.
He was the master of his country, not its prince.
He made his house august, the city narrow.
He set his country on fire, that he might extinguish it.
The pyre failed for the extinguished man at his hour:
The earth disdains to cover him who disdains to touch the earth.
Verse 12: You Have Appealed to Caesar; to Caesar You Shall Go
12. Then Festus, having spoken with the council (with his advisors; thus the Syriac). — As if to say: Festus, having heard the accusation of the Jews and Paul's defense, ordered them to withdraw, and secretly consulted his counsellors as to what was to be done in this case, and whether Paul's appeal to Caesar was to be admitted or rejected: for if Paul had been a stirrer-up of seditions, as the Jews charged, he ought to have been punished on the spot and not sent to Caesar, as the civil laws ordained. The counsellors therefore declared that he was not such, and therefore the appeal must be admitted, both in order to satisfy Paul who was appealing, and the Jews who could not bear to see Paul alive in Judea, in some manner; and that this honor of an appeal might be paid to Caesar by the Governor, and by it he himself might profess that he was subject to Caesar, and that Caesar was his superior and judge.
You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go. — As if to say: Since you appear to refuse my tribunal and judgment, and from it appeal to Caesar, go to Caesar and plead your case before him. For these words of the Governor seem to flow from a mind somewhat stirred up and offended at Paul, because Paul by this appeal seemed to charge the Governor's judgment as suspect and too inclined toward the Jews.
Note here the lofty and wonderful counsel and providence of God, by which He directed Paul through chains, accusations, injuries, vexations not only of the Jews but also of the judges, to Rome, that with St. Peter he might found the Roman Church, and, against the will of Nero, establish her as the mother of the rest. Splendidly St. Nazianzen, oration 18 On St. Cyprian: "The divine wisdom," he says, "knows how to lay the foundations of great things long before, and to procure contraries through contraries, that it may excite greater admiration of itself in mortals." He gives examples of Joseph, Moses, and the Hebrews: "He (God)," he says, "brought Joseph, sold by the wickedness and injury of his brothers, into Egypt, tested him in the woman, ennobled him in the dispensing of grain, instructed him through dreams, that he might obtain credit and authority in a foreign land, and be honored by Pharaoh and become the father of those greatest stores, for the sake of which Egypt is tormented, the sea is parted, bread is poured down like rain, the course of the sun is held back, and the promised land is distributed by lot." So Paul here is exalted and glorified through adversities, so that through his chains his faith, virtue, and glory were celebrated in the court of Nero and in all the Praetorium, as he himself asserts, Philip. i, 13.
Morally, the same Nazianzen there teaches that Paul and the Saints are cosmopolitans and citizens of the world, because they do not have an earthly Judea or Jerusalem as their fatherland, but a heavenly one, for which they undergo all bitter things and death eagerly. St. Cyprian, he says, exhorted all the faithful in the persecution of Decius to constancy and martyrdom: "For this is the most excellent business of all, by which the heavenly kingdom is bought at the price of a little blood, and brief and fragile goods are exchanged for everlasting glory. For there is one fatherland for great and exalted men, namely that Jerusalem which is perceived by the mind, not those which we see here circumscribed by narrow limits, and which are inhabited successively by various people; that the splendor of our race consists likewise in this, that we preserve the divine image and imitate our exemplar. One sovereignty, moreover, lies in this, that we obtain the palm against that wicked one, and that we do not in those contests which are undertaken for the sake of piety allow our spirits to be broken and overcome, where vice contends with virtue, and the flowing and fragile world with the firm and stable; and the harsh and savage president of the contest with strong athletes; and Belial draws up his battle line against Christ: for these reasons he urged that swords should be despised, that cold fire and beasts however monstrous and savage should be considered tame, that hunger should be regarded as the highest delights; and that the tears of friends and relatives, and lamentations and groans, should be passed by as a snare of the devil and an impediment of the way that leads to God. For these," he said, "are the marks of manly and vigorous souls, and of grave and prudent counsel. And he himself was a near example of these things, since he had counted all things as dung that he might gain Christ."
Verse 13: King Agrippa and Bernice
13. King Agrippa. — This Agrippa was not that elder one who, struck by an angel, perished in chap. xii, but his son, brother of Drusilla and Bernice. For Agrippa the elder had two sons, Drusus and Agrippa the younger; and three daughters, Drusilla, Bernice and Mariamne: so Josephus, book XVIII of the Antiquities, chap. vii. Agrippa the younger, to distinguish him from the elder, is called Agrippina by the Hebrews. He, when his father died, was a boy at Rome, and was made king of Chalcis by the Emperor Claudius. Then the tetrarchy of Philip, namely Trachonitis, was added to him; but Judea remained under the Roman governors. So when Agrippa changed the high priest of the Jews and meddled in their sacred things, as Josephus writes, he did this not so much by right as by the connivance of the Roman governors, who voluntarily permitted it to him as to a religious Jew and the grandson of a king of Judea, especially because Agrippa's domain was reckoned to pertain to Judea and the Jews. Furthermore both were called Agrippa in honor of M. Agrippa, who was the son-in-law of Augustus Caesar: for from Augustus, Herod the Ascalonite, who was the grandfather of Agrippa, had received the kingdom of Judea. Whence Agrippa the elder called his daughter Drusilla, in honor of Livia, wife of Augustus, who was surnamed Drusilla, as I said in chap. xxiv, 24; and his son Drusus, in honor of Drusus, son of Livia and brother of Tiberius Caesar. For Agrippa is not a Hebrew, but a Roman name, so called from a difficult birth, or from sickness and feet. Hear Gellius, book VI, chap. xvi: Those in whose birth not the head but the feet first appeared, which is held to be the most difficult and painful birth, were called Agrippae, from sickness (aegritudo) and feet (pedes). Varro says that infants thus turned in the womb rest with the head down, with feet raised upward: not as the nature of a human is, but as that of a tree (whence man is also called an inverted tree). For he calls the feet and legs the branches of the tree, and the head the stalk and trunk. When therefore feet are turned contrary to nature, with arms generally drawn aside, and are usually held back, women then bring forth more painfully. And Pliny, book VII, chap. viii: "To come forth feet-first in being born is contrary to nature: from which argument they have been called Agrippae, as being hardly born." Whence also M. Agrippa had many sicknesses of body and mind: "For he was of poor health in his feet, a wretched youth, an age spent among arms and deaths, with success in evils, with a stock unhappy in all the lands, but most through both Agrippinas": for of these one bore Gaius Caligula Caesar, the other Nero, "so many torches of the human race. Moreover by the brevity of life, snatched away in his 51st year, in the torments of his wife's adulteries and his father-in-law's grievous bondage, he is thought to have suffered the omen of a backward birth": so Pliny, and Suetonius, in Augustus, chaps. lxiii, lxiv and lxv. In like manner, both Herod Agrippas were wretched, unhappy and ill-omened: for under the younger the Jewish war was waged, and Judea and Jerusalem were overthrown by Titus. Pliny adds: "Nero too, throughout his entire reign an enemy of the human race, his mother Agrippina records was born feet-first. By the rite of nature, the human is normally born head-first, and is carried out feet-first."
Note here the same disposition and office of the Herods in judging the faithful and Christians, propagated through continuous generations. For the first Herod, the Ascalonite, was the judge and executioner of the innocent little children, and would have been so for Christ also, if he could have caught Him. His son, Herod Antipas, was a mocker of Christ and the executioner of St. John the Baptist. The grandson, Herod Agrippa the elder, was the judge and imprisoner of St. Peter, and the slayer of St. James. The great-great-grandson, namely Agrippa the younger, was here as it were the judge of St. Paul.
And Bernice. — There were many illustrious women of this name. The first Bernice was the wife of Ptolemy Lagus, the first king of Egypt after Alexander the Great, mother of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a woman of rare beauty and most beloved by her husband. The second Bernice was the daughter of Philadelphus, who afterwards married her brother Ptolemy Evergetes, whose locks are thought to have been carried up to heaven by the persuasion of Conon the Mathematician, about which Catullus has an elegy. The third was Bernice most famous among the Greeks, by whom she was called Pherenice, that is "bearing victory," as being daughter, mother, and sister of Olympic victors, that is, of those who had borne off victory and palm in the Olympic games, as Pliny attests, book VII, chap. xl. The fourth Bernice was the daughter of Herod the Ascalonite, whom Augustus Caesar held in honor. The fifth was St. Veronica (for in the Chronicle of L. Dexter and by others she is called Bernice, Berenice, or Beronice) who gave Christ a sudarium as He went to the cross to wipe away His sweat, on which Christ impressed His face, which is preserved at Rome in the basilica of St. Peter with great veneration and is shown every year on the Lord's Supper. The sixth was this Bernice, daughter of Herod Agrippa the elder and sister of the younger, so called from her great-aunt, namely from Bernice the daughter of Herod the Ascalonite. Now Luke joins her here to Agrippa the younger, to signify that she was not only his sister, but also his concubine. For she herself, just as her sister Drusilla, was incontinent and suspected of incest with her brother: hence they so loved each other that they always went about associated, as will be clear in verse 23. Hence Chrysostom also calls her "the wife of Agrippa": wherefore Bernice, in order to wash away this suspicion, married Polemon, king of Cilicia, or as others would have it Lycia, whom however she soon left on account of intemperance, whence Juvenal calls her "incestuous," Satire 6:
"The barbarian Agrippa gave this (diamond) to his incestuous sister."
Tacitus, however, books I and II of the Histories, teaches that she pleased Vespasian and nothing was nearer to happening than that she should marry Titus. Hear Josephus, book XX of the Antiquities, chap. v: "Furthermore Bernice, after the death of Herod, who had been at once her husband and uncle, having spent some time in widowhood, when a rumor was spread that she was consorting with her brother, persuaded Polemon, king of Cilicia, that he should marry her after first being circumcised, thinking she would in this way refute the falsehood. Nor did Polemon refuse, induced especially by the woman's wealth. But this marriage was not long-lasting, because of intemperance, as is said, Bernice withdrawing from him; and he, soon deserted by his wife, became himself a deserter of the Jewish religion." Josephus adds about Mariamne, the other sister of Bernice, of the same disposition with her: "And at the same time Mariamne also, despising Archelaus, passed into the chamber of Demetrius, the first among the Alexandrian Jews, and the Alabarch, by whom she had a son Agrippinus." Behold with how impure and incestuous persons Paul had his contest, and yet by the vehemence of his truth and speech he struck and astounded them, although they were his judges, as will be clear in the next chapter, verses 24 and 27.
Furthermore, as for Bernice, if you regard the Greek etymology, it is the same as βάρος νίκης, that is the weight or burden of victory, or a heavy and weighty victory; Pherenice, however, is the same as "bearing victory." For the Macedonians often change φ into β and instead of "Pherenice" say "Berenice." But if you regard the Hebrew etymology, Bernice is the same as purity-innocence: for בר bar is pure, נקי naki is innocent; so Pagninus in his Interpretation of Hebrew Names. These etymologies and meanings fit St. Veronica perfectly: in the rest, however, and especially in this our Bernice, they signify not what they were, but what they should have been.
To greet Festus, — as a new governor, to congratulate him on his happy arrival in the province.
Verse 15: Asking for His Condemnation
15. Asking for his condemnation. — δίκην, that is a sentence by which he might be condemned to death; thus Vatablus.
Verse 16: It Is Not the Custom of the Romans
16. It is not the custom of the Romans, etc. — The same custom was among other peoples. For it is of the law of nature and of nations that an accused person should not be condemned unless he is first heard and a place for defense is given him. Whence that saying: "Hear the other side." Thus Alexander, according to Plutarch in the Apophthegms, when sitting as judge on his tribunal, would close one ear, that he might keep it whole for the accused. Ammianus, book XVIII, relates that Delphidius, when he was accusing Numerius of theft and could not prove it because Numerius boldly denied it, exclaimed: "Will anyone be able to be guilty anywhere, most flourishing Caesar, if denying suffices?" To whom Julian: "Will anyone be able to be innocent, if accusing suffices?" Wherefore the laws established that a defendant, unless convicted of the crime, should be absolved. For it is better to absolve the guilty than to condemn the innocent, ff. De Poenis, book Absentem, chap. De accusationibus. For which reason, shrewd and prudent litigants make themselves the defendants in the suit, and by this method often obtain a victory which they would otherwise lose: for it is easier to wage a defensive war than an offensive one; just as it is easier to defend a city than to take it. For on the accuser falls the proof of the crime; for the defendant his denial is enough. Hence if the accuser fails in proof, the defendant is by that very fact absolved. For life, once snatched from the innocent, can never be restored; but life, once granted to the guilty, can at any time be sought back and taken away, as King Theodoric says in Cassiodorus, book VII, letter 1.
To condemn any man, — εἰς ἀπώλειαν, to slaughter and destruction, as the Greek and Syriac add. Whence the Roman Bibles rightly correct τὸ donare, and in its place read damnare. For "to grant someone to slaughter," as the Greek has it, is the same as to condemn. Now Luke says χαρίζεσθαι, that is "to grant," because the Jews were asking a favor from Festus against Paul; namely, that he might be granted to them as a gift unto death, as Paul says in verse 3, that is, that he might be condemned: by which they sufficiently acknowledged the weakness and iniquity of their cause — namely, that they desired Paul to be condemned by favor and grace, since they could not prosecute him as guilty of death by justice.
Verse 18: They Brought No Charge
18. They brought no charge (no offense, no crime), — so the Syriac: for this is what αἰτία signifies. Hence Our author, in explaining this "cause," adds: "They brought no charges of those things which I suspected to be evil." Wherefore Pagninus translates clearly: "they alleged no crime concerning these matters about which I suspected"; suspected, I say, because I saw the Jews accusing him so ardently and demanding him to death.
Verse 19: Concerning His Own Superstition
19. Concerning his own superstition. — Thus Festus, because a Gentile, calls the religion of the Jews. And indeed the Gentiles abused these honorifics and titles, since they held their kings and emperors as gods out of either fear or flattery, and worshiped them with divine honors and sacrifices. Hence Virgil, concerning Octavius Augustus, in Eclogue 1:
For he shall always be a god to me; his altar
Often shall a tender lamb from our sheepfolds stain.
More soberly, Christian kings and emperors are called and venerated as Augusti, as though divinely given, and with a certain religious veneration — yet human, not divine — to be honored on account of their merits toward the commonwealth. For [the Jewish religion] was truly beginning to be a superstition.
Verse 20: Hesitating Concerning Such a Question
20. But I, hesitating concerning such a question, asked if he would go to Jerusalem. — Festus lies, to gloss over his own deed; for it was not out of hesitation, but as a favor to the Jews, that he wished to take him to Jerusalem. And when a little before he had called it a superstition, how did he hesitate about it? Hence Chrysostom: "If you are hesitant and anxious," he says, "why do you drag him to Jerusalem? Thus he spoke, veiling his own sin."
Verse 21: To the Cognizance of Augustus
21. To the cognizance of Augustus. — Nero here, as elsewhere any emperor, is called "Augustus," and the origin is from Octavius Augustus, who succeeded Julius Caesar, just as "Caesar" is derived from Julius. For Octavius as an infant was called Thurinus. "Afterwards," says Suetonius in his Life, chap. vii, "he took the surname of Caesar and then of Augustus: the one by the testament of his great-uncle; the other by the judgment of Munatius Plancus, when, though some were of the opinion that he should be called Romulus, as being, as it were, himself the founder of the city, it prevailed that he should rather be called Augustus — not only by a new, but also a fuller cognomen; because places too that are religious and in which anything is consecrated with augury are called augusta, from increase (auctus), or from the behavior or tasting of birds (avium gestus gustusve), as Ennius also teaches, writing: 'After famous Rome was founded by august augury.'" For among the many presages of the empire and good fortune of Octavius Augustus, which Suetonius recounts in his Life, chap. xciv and following, an eagle snatched a loaf from him as he was dining, and immediately returned it. Again: "An eagle, settling upon his tent, struck down two crows attacking from either side and laid them on the ground, while the whole army took note, foreshadowing the future discord between the colleagues, such as indeed followed, and its outcome," says Suetonius, chap. xcvi. Plainly the eagle signified Augustus, who overcame the two crows — that is, Lepidus and Antony, his colleagues in the triumvirate — and thus made himself monarch.
Hence Augustus, in Greek σεβαστός, is the same as "to be venerated," and to be worshiped as though with a certain majesty of divinity. For a king or emperor is the living image of God on earth, and, as it were, a kind of earthly god. Hence that common saying: "Princes are granted by fate." Thus Virgil in book VI of the Aeneid sings: "Augustus Caesar, of the race of gods;" and Servius on book IV of the Georgics: "Augustus," he says, "is the same as consecrated by augury, and by abuse of the word, noble and full of majesty." And Statius, book IV of the Silvae, chap. ii, and Ovid, book I of the Fasti:
The Fathers call holy things august; august are called
Temples, consecrated by the priest's hand in due rite.
And Cicero, book III On the Nature of the Gods, says of the gods: "All of whom we venerate in an august and holy manner."
Verse 22: I Myself Also Wished to Hear the Man
22. I myself also wished to hear the man, — out of curiosity, which had whetted in Agrippa a huge desire of seeing and hearing Paul. "For," says Chrysostom, "unless he had desired it, he would not have sought to hear; nor would he have made his wife (so he calls Bernice, sister and concubine of Agrippa) partner in the hearing, unless he had thought great things of him."
Verse 23: With Great Pomp, Into the Hall of Audience
23. With great pomp — phantasia, that is, display, ostentation, pomp, retinue, haughtiness: this haughtiness was set in a great throng of servants and nobles, splendor of garments, diadem, crown, scepter and other ensigns of royal dignity, pompous gait, etc. So Suidas: φαντάζεσθαι, he says, ἐπὶ τὸ φαίνειν ἔλεγον, that is, for "to appear," for display and ostentation. Artabanus, dissuading Xerxes from war against the Greeks: "As God," says he, "strikes with lightning tall and lofty animals, nor allows them to display themselves — in Greek, οὐδ' ἐᾷ φαντάζεσθαι — and as it were to make a spectacle of themselves: but small things He does not even scratch or pluck": so Herodotus in Polymnia. Wherefore Isocrates wisely, in his Paraenesis to Nicocles, teaches that the majesty and safety of princes does not consist in the arms of bodyguards, but in the virtue of friends, the goodwill of citizens and the prudence of the prince, and, as Pliny adds in the Panegyric of Trajan, in innocence: "For this, like an inaccessible citadel and impregnable bulwark, needs no fortification; in vain does he gird himself with terror who is not hedged about with charity: for arms are provoked by arms." Here is fulfilled that oracle concerning Paul: "That he may bear My name before the nations and kings," Acts ix. "See," says Chrysostom, "what an audience is gathered for Paul before the chief men of the city. For the prince and king came forth with all his bodyguards gathered, and with them the tribunes and leading men of the city were present." For Paul's name and fame had roused everyone to see and hear him, and would certainly have roused any others. Hence St. Augustine wished to see three things, namely, Paul thundering in the chair, Rome flourishing in triumph, Christ conversing in the flesh, as I said in the proem to St. Paul.
Into the hall of audience, — into the hall of the praetorium, where cases and lawsuits were heard and conducted before the governor sitting on the tribunal. Into it Paul is brought in bound from prison, but loftier than the governor, the king, and the whole assembly, as we shall hear from his speech in the following chapter. Surely, says Chrysostom, "God willed that the innocence of His client should be made manifest in such a theater, and attested by so many and such weighty testimonies." Whence the governor immediately adds, in verse 25:
Verse 25: I Have Found Nothing Worthy of Death
25. But I have found that he has committed nothing worthy of death. — I have found this both from the letters of Lysias, and from the testimony of Felix, the governor before me, and from the accusation of the Jews and the defense of Paul.
But with him himself (that is, Paul himself, as is clear from the Greek, καὶ αὐτοῦ δὲ τούτου) appealing to Augustus, I judged to send him, — as if to say: Not from my own judgment (since I perceived him innocent, and therefore think he should be released free), but at Paul's own appeal I have decided to send him to Nero, especially lest the Jews accuse me before him of having released the accused and obstructed the appeal and inquiry of Caesar.
Verse 26: What Certain Thing I Should Write to My Lord
26. Concerning whom what certain thing I should write to the lord; — to Nero Caesar: for the title "lord" was Caesar's, which however Augustus Caesar refused, says Tertullian in the Apology, chap. xxxiv, and Dio, book LV, because by the secret prompting of God he was, in effect, as it were foreboding the imminent rising of Christ, who was to be King of kings and Lord of lords, of whom he himself was only the type and shadow. Thus the Turks call their emperor the Great Lord; the Tartars, Persians and others call him Sultan, that is, lord. Furthermore, Christian emperors are depicted with a globe in their hand, on which a cross is fixed, in the way the Emperor Justinian was first depicted, on the testimony of Procopius, and from him Suidas, under the word "Justinian." But our Gretser, book II On the Cross, chap. liv, teaches from Gregory and Glycas that, before Justinian, Constantine, Theodosius, and Eudoxia, the wife of Valentinian III the Emperor, were depicted in that manner: by which is signified that the Emperor is not so much lord of the world (for he has only a small part of the world subject to him) as he ought to propagate and defend the faith and the cross of Christ throughout the whole world.