Acts 24:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“We seized him,” they say. See how cunningly they present him as a fugitive, and as if they had only just seized him, though he had spent seven days in the temple.

“We seized him and wished to judge him according to our law.” See how they insult even the Law, as if it prescribed beating, killing, and plotting.

“He attempted.” Therefore he did not defile it. But did he do this somewhere else? No. Otherwise the accuser would have said so. Instead, he says only, “who even attempted,” and does not add how.

Thus he magnifies everything that concerned Paul. But as for what concerned them, see how he diminishes it.

“We seized him,” he says, “and wished to judge him according to our law.”

The accusation brought here by the Sanhedrin against Paul consisted solely of what could have significance in the eyes of the Roman government regarding the Jews. They accused Paul of everywhere violating the rights granted to the Jews for peaceful use within the empire. They said that he was causing disturbances and divisions among them, and that recently he had dared to profane the temple. They complained against the tribune, saying that he had hindered the Jews from judging Paul according to the rights granted to them.

After five days Paul's accusers appeared in Caesarea: the high priest Ananias with the elders. They had armed themselves with an advocate, the orator Tertullus, who delivered the accusation against Paul before the procurator (vv. 1-9). Yet the eloquence of this speaker did not achieve its purpose.

3. The third accusation against Paul was that he dared, more precisely, attempted, to defile the temple. This charge is expressed more evasively than in Acts 21:28. Here only Paul’s alleged attempt to defile the temple is mentioned. At that time they cried out that he had already defiled it.

All these accusations are unproved, as Paul himself observed in his apologetic speech recorded below, verse 13.

“We seized him and wished to judge him according to our law.” The rhetorician speaks falsely, in order to conceal from the governor the Jews’ arbitrary action against Paul. They did not intend to judge him according to their law when they seized him in the temple. They beat him and wished to kill him (Acts 21:31-32).

The orator’s accusation against the Apostle Paul is concentrated in calling him a plague upon society and a stirrer of sedition throughout the whole world. All these are such high-sounding phrases that even Felix, inventive in evil as he was, could find nothing real in them as a so-called corpus delicti.

This was all the more so because Felix could hardly feel called to pacify the world, or especially to heal imaginary plagues of society, since he himself was in fact such a plague.

The accusation of defiling the temple was more definite. Yet this could touch Felix still less as a Roman procurator. Moreover, he could guess what sort of defilement this was, about which the orator thought it better to remain silent before a representative of pagan authority.