Acts 24:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

How, then, did he defile it? It was impossible for the same man to be purifying himself and praying, and at the same time to come and defile it. Everywhere he refutes the idea of sedition.

The defensive speech of the Apostle Paul had a stronger effect on the procurator. Felix dismissed the accusers, promising to reconsider the case when the tribune Lysias came. Until then he granted the prisoner Paul even greater freedom than he had enjoyed before. He ordered the centurion assigned to him not to restrain him, and not to forbid any of his own people to serve him or come to him (vv. 10-23).

Before this he had not been in Jerusalem for five years. When he returned with alms for the poor of his people and with offerings for the temple, the Jews found him in the temple, where he was peacefully purifying himself according to the law. He was innocent of the riot that followed. It had been stirred up by certain Asian Jews, who ought to have been present as witnesses. Their absence proved the weakness of the accusation against him.

“Having been purified in the temple” (Acts 21:26 and following). I not only did not attempt to defile the temple. On the contrary, revering its holiness, I entered it with the purification required by the law.

Moreover, I did not enter with a crowd that I might stir up there, nor with noise, such as usually accompanies a popular disturbance.

“How then could he, Paul, have defiled the temple? It was impossible for one and the same man to purify himself and pray, and at the same time to come and defile the temple” (Chrysostom).

The apostle’s reference to his performance of the rite of purification also indicates that he is not a destroyer of the traditions of the fathers, but a fulfiller of them.

The Asian Jews were witnesses of this, the fiercest enemies of Paul. Yet even they could not deny what they had seen him doing in the temple.

Thus the demand that they be present at the trial is just. This is all the more so because they were the very ones who first began the disturbance against Paul.

As though defending this demand of Paul, Saint John Chrysostom says: “The defense is especially strong in this, that he does not flee from his accusers, but is ready to answer all.