Paul's enemies against his life, to send him under an escort tu the metropolis of the province Cæsarea, and to transfer the affair to the Procurator Felix, who resided there.

The accusation which the Sanhedrim by their counsel were allowed to bring against him, was the only one which, according to the privileges secured to the Jews by the Roman laws, could with any show of reason be made, namely, that he everywhere disturbed the Jews in the enjoyment of these privileges, the peaceful exercise of their cultus,-that he excited disturbances and divisions among them, and that at last he had dared to desecrate the temple. The tribune was accused of preventing the Jews from judging Paul according to the privileges secured to them by law. Felix, who was not disposed to meddle with the internal disputes of the Jews, perceived no fault in the accused, and hence would at once have set him at liberty, if he had not hoped, as it was his practice to make justice venal, to obtain money from him; but as Paul was not willing to purchase his freedom by such an unlawful method, which would cast suspicion both on himself and his cause, Felix, in order to gain favour with the Jews on leaving them, to whom he had been sufficiently obnoxious, left him in confinement, and thus he remained for two years till the arrival of the new Procurator, M. Porcius Festus.1

certainly more than the Pharisees could be willing to say from their standing-point.

1 If the precise time at which Felix was recalled, and Festus received the government of the province, could be exactly determined, we should have an important chronological mark; but this period cannot be so exactly determined. The chronological data on which we here proceed, are the following. When Felix laid down the procuratorship, he was accused at Rome, as Josephus (Archæol. xx. 8, § 9) relates, by the Jews, on account of the oppressions he had practised, and would have been punished if he had not been delivered by the intercession of his brother Pallas, who at that time had much influence with the emperor. But Pallas was poisoned by Nero in the year 62, see Tacit. Annal. xiv. 65. This enables us to fix the extreme terminus a quo of the recal of Felix. But according to the narrative of Tacitus, Pallas had long before lost his influence, (Annal. xiii. 14.) At the beginning of his reign, Nero had removed Pallas from the office he held under Claudius, and treated him with displeasure. And since Josephus says that when Pallas interceded for his brother Felix he stood in favour with the emperor, it follows, that the recal of Felix must have taken place in the beginning of Nero's reign, which can by no means be admitted. What Josephus says in the

Paul had for a long time previous to this event entertained the thought of preaching the gospel in the metropolis of the world. But it was now uncertain whether he would ever attain the fulfilment of this inward call; but on the night after he had borne testimony to his faith before the assembled Sanhedrim, the Lord imparted the assurance to him by a vision, that as he had been his witness in the capital of the Jewish world, he should also be the same in that of the Gentile world. It was this which confirmed him in his resolution, when the procurator was about to sacrifice him to the wishes of the Jewish Sanhedrim, of seeking deliverance by an appeal to the emperor. The arrival at Cæsarea of the young King Agrippa II., as a person acquainted with the Jews and their religion, was acceptable to Festus, since he hoped that by admitting Paul to an examination in his presence, he could learn something more decisive in this affair, which might be communicated in his report to Rome. Paul appeared before so numerous and august an assembly, before the Roman procurator and the Jewish king, with exultation at the thought of being able to testify of what filled his heart before such an audience. He addressed himself especially to King Agrippa, in whom, as a professor of the Jewish faith, he history of his life, of his own journey to Rome in his six-and-twentieth year, gives no sure foundation for determining the time when Felix laid down his office. Schrader thinks indeed, that he can find a certain chronological mark in this, that something which Josephus puts in connexion with the entrance of Festus into office, was decided by the influence of Poppoa, already married to Nero, (Joseph. Archæol. xx. 8, § 1); for it would follow that since Nero, according to Tacitus, married Poppoa in 62, Festus must have entered on his government about this time. But the words of Josephus, xiv. 60, κатà TǹV KAIPÒV TOÛTOV, cannot avail for exactly determining the time; Poppa, long before her marriage to Nero, had great influence over him, as appears from the words of Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 60, "Ea diri pellex et adulteri Neronis, mox mariti potens," and had already accomplished much by interceding with the emperor. We need not attach much weight to the circumstance that Josephus calls her at that time the wife of Nero. But in all this much uncertainty attaches to the chronology of events, and the supposition that Felix laid down his office in the year 62, and therefore that Paul's confinement took place in 60, is by no means sufficiently proved. We may therefore safely place it some years earlier. If Paul was set at liberty from his confinement at Rome, we must necessarily admit the earlier date; for if his confinement at Rome had been contemporaneous with the great conflagration, he would certainly have fallen a sacrifice to the fury then excited against the Christians.

hoped to find more points of connexion than in a heathen magistrate. He narrated how he had been educated in zealous attachment to Pharisaic principles, and from a violent persecutor had, by a call from the Lord himself, become a devoted preacher of the gospel,-that in obeying this call up to that time he had testified before Jews and Gentiles, great and small, but had published nothing else than what Moses and the Prophets had foretold, that the Messiah should suffer, that he should rise from the dead, and by the assurance of an everlasting divine life diffuse light among Jews and Gentiles. This he might presume was admitted by the king as an acknowledged article of faith, but it must appear utterly strange to the Romans; strange also must the religious inspiration with which Paul uttered all this appear to the cold-hearted Roman statesman. He could see nothing in it but enthusiastic delusion. "Too much Jewish learning," he exclaimed, "hath made thee mad." But with calm confidence Paul replied, “I am not mad, but speak the words of truth and soberness!" and, turning to Agrippa, he called upon him as a witness, since he well knew that these things were not done in a corner of the earth, in secret, but publicly at Jerusalem. And with a firm conviction, that in all he had testified the promises of the prophets were fulfilled, he said to the king, "Believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest!" Agrippa, offended by Paul's confidence, answered, "Truly in a short time' thou wilt make me a Christian." Paul, with his fetters on his arm, was conscious of possessing more than all the glory of the world, uttered the noble words," Yes, I pray God that in a longer or a shorter time, he would make not only thee, O king, but all who hear me to-day, what I now am, except these bonds!"

1 I understand the words èv oxíyw (Acts xxvi. 28) in the only sense which they can have according to the usus loquendi and Paul's answer. The interpretation adopted by Meyer and some others is indeed possible, but appears to me not so natural. If the reading of the Cod. Alex. and of the Vulgate, which Lachmann approves, be adopted, èv μeyáλw, in Paul's answer, the words of Agrippa must be thus explained, "With a little, or with few reasons (which will not cost you much trouble) you think of making me a Christian"-and the answer of Paul will be, Whether with great or with little-for many or few reasons, I pray God, &c. But I cannot make up my mind to receive as correct this reading, which may be explained as a gloss, and is not supported by very preponderating authorities.

As the king and the procurator after this examination could not find Paul guilty of any offence punishable by the laws, the procurator would probably have set him at liberty, if after his appeal to Cæsar it had not been necessary for the matter to take its legal course; yet the report (elogium) with which he would be sent to Rome, could not be otherwise than in his favour. The centurion to whom he was committed with other prisoners in order to be taken to Rome, certainly corroborated the impression of this favourable report by the account he gave of Paul's conduct during his long and dangerous voyage. Hence he met at Rome with more indulgent treatment than the other prisoners: he was allowed to hire a private dwelling in which only one soldier attended him as a guard, to whom he was fastened by a chain on the arm (the usual mode of the custodia militaris), and could receive all who were disposed to visit him, and write letters.

As he had cause to fear that the Jews dwelling at Rome had received from Jerusalem a report inimical to his character, and regarded him as an accuser of his people, he endeavoured speedily to remove this unfavourable impression. Accordingly, three days after his arrival, he invited the principal persons among them to visit him. It proved that no report to Paul's prejudice had yet reached them, if it be allowed that they spoke the truth. It also appeared from the statements of these respectable Jews, that they had heard little or nothing of the Christian church which existed in the same city with themselves. Nor is this inconceivable, if we only consider the immense size of the metropolis, and the vast confluence of human beings it contained, and if to this we add, that the main body of that church consisted of Gentiles, and that these wealthy Jews busied themselves far more about other objects than about the concerns of religion. Yet it by no means appears from the statements of the Jews that they had scarcely heard of a Christian church existing at Rome, but only that they had not taken any pains to acquire an accurate knowledge of it. They knew indeed that this new sect met everywhere with opponents, and hence it might be inferred that they had heard of the controversies which had been carried on at Rome about it, for the "everywhere" (Tavraxou), in Acts xxviii. 22, includes (certainly does not exclude) a reference to what was

going on at Rome itself, and we must not forget that only the substance of what the Jews said is handed down to us.1 As they heard much of the opposition excited against this new sect, but nothing precise respecting their doctrines, they were well pleased that Paul proposed to give them an address on the subject. But here, as everywhere else, Paul's preaching found more acceptance with the Gentiles than with the Jews.2

1 I cannot find any foundation for the contradiction which Dr. Bauer, in his treatises so often quoted, thinks he has detected between this narration in the Acts, and the existence of such a church at Rome, which we must suppose according to Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

2 The position developed and advocated with equal acuteness and learning by H. Böttger in the second part of his Beitrage zur historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die paulinischen Briefe, Gottingen, 1837, -that Paul was a prisoner only for the first three or five days after his arrival in Rome, that he then obtained his freedom, and lived for two years in a hired house, quite at liberty;-this position, if it were true, would cast a new light on Paul's history during this period; for it would then appear that all those Epistles, which evidently were written during some one imprisonment, could not have been written at Rome or during his first confinement there. But the narrative in the Acts is directly opposed to this supposition. I cannot understand Acts xxviii. 16, otherwise than that permission was then granted to Paul to reside in a private house, the same which is designated in v. 23, his lodging, evía, and in v. 30, as èv idi μolwμati, "his own hired house." It cannot be imagined, that if, after three days, so important an alteration had taken place in Paul's circumstances, Luke would not have mentioned it, for the assertion that his readers must have supposed this of themselves, from the known forms of Roman justice, cannot satisfy us. Even if this could have been supposed, he would hardly have omitted to point out in a few words so important a change in Paul's lot. But it is not easily proved that such an inference could be drawn, from what is known respecting the course of Roman justice at that time. The manner also in which Luke expresses himself (Acts xxviii. 30, 31) respecting Paul's residence for two years at Rome, certainly implies that he had not then obtained his freedom, for we are merely told that he preached the gospel in his own dwelling; but it is not narrated that he visited the synagogue or any place where the church met, for which omission no other reason can be given, than that, although he could receive any visit in his own residence, under the inspection of his guard, he was not at liberty to go to whatever place he chose; and least of all, would a prisoner, whose cause was not yet decided, have been permitted to attend these meetings of the church, even if accompanied by his guard. Here, therefore, we have a fact which cannot be explained, unless we admit the continued confinement of Paul. How likewise can it be imagined, that Paul, who wished to visit the church at Rome only on his way, would have stayed there for two years, where suitable measures had already been taken for