Acts 25:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore Paul also brings him to fear, using a human means. Listen to what it was. Paul did not say, “I do not want to,” lest he irritate the judge. Instead, he says boldly, “I stand before Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged.” Great boldness! See how he strikes them with reasoning. In his defense he is, as it were, saying this: they have already once expelled me, and now they think to judge me as though I had committed a crime against Caesar. Therefore I wish to be judged by the one whom I am said to have offended. Having said this, he adds, “I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also know very well.” He touched also the one who was trying to please the Jews.

The expression, “I stand before Caesar’s judgment seat,” means: I wish to go to Rome, to Caesar, and there receive judgment. I demand this, he says, from you.

Paul had long cherished the thought of preaching the Gospel in the capital of the world. The circumstances in Jerusalem seemed to obscure this thought. But on the very night after his explanation before the Sanhedrin, where he bore witness to his faith, the Lord Himself appeared to him. He assured him that, as he had testified concerning Christ in Jerusalem, so he must also testify concerning Him in Rome. Of course, this vision moved him to appeal his case to the emperor when he noticed that the procurator wished to sacrifice him in order to please the people.

The trial of Paul opened again, and the Jews who had come from Jerusalem again began accusing him before the procurator. But the many grave charges they brought against Paul remained unproved. Festus could have released Paul, but since the Jews objected (Acts 28:19), he wished to please them. He asked the apostle whether he wanted his trial transferred to Jerusalem and handed over to the Sanhedrin. But Paul did not wish to be delivered to the Jews, and demanded Caesar’s judgment.

But the Apostle Paul knew very well that he could count far more on justice in the hands of the Romans than in the hands of the Jews. Their crimes were now bringing Jerusalem itself to destruction.

Jewish courts constantly and furiously accused him. Pagan tribunals, with such judges as Gallio, Lysias, Felix, and Festus, and even such a monster as Nero, always recognized his innocence.

But he had already grown weary of these delays and of this furious repetition of slander, which he had already refuted ten times. He was weary of being the apple of discord amid mutual hatred.

He was equally weary of the arbitrary whims of provincial governors. The dreary barracks of Caesarea were as dreadful to Paul's fiery zeal as the gloomy prison of Machaerus was to the free soul of John the Baptist.

"I stand before Caesar's judgment seat": this is the positive expression of his refusal and, at the same time, its first reason. I have been delivered to Caesar's judgment, since the procurator's court acts in Caesar's name.

I do not wish to transfer the case again to the judgment of the Sanhedrin. Here, before Caesar's judgment seat, I ought to be judged as a Roman citizen.

"I have done no wrong to the Jews": this is the negative expression of his refusal and, at the same time, its second reason. Since I have wronged them in nothing, I do not wish to be tried before their supreme court, the Sanhedrin.

"As you also know very well," or more precisely, "better," means better than you now officially say. This expression probably refers to both points just indicated by the apostle.

Festus' proposal that the apostle be tried in Jerusalem was apparently an attempt to fulfill the Jews' desire. The writer of Acts also notes this.

The commentators, however, see in this proposal a change in Festus himself. Thus Saint John Chrysostom says: "While Festus did not yet know the Jews and had not received honors from them, he answered justly. But when he had been in Jerusalem, he likewise began to please them. He does not simply please them, but does so with servility. Listen how: Do you wish, he says, to go up to Jerusalem, that I may judge you there concerning this matter?