Chapter 25
Festus Arrives in the Province
1 Festus then, having arrived in the province, went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea three days later.
2 And the chief priests and the leading men of the Jews brought charges against Paul before him, and they were urging him,
3 asking as a favor against Paul that he would summon him to Jerusalem — while they were setting an ambush to kill him along the way.
4 Festus then answered that Paul was being kept in custody at Caesarea, and that he himself was about to go there shortly.
5 “Therefore,” he said, “let those among you who are in positions of authority come down with me, and if there is anything wrong about the man, let them bring charges against him.”
Translator’s Notes — vv. 1–5:
v.1: Festus’s first act as governor is to go up to Jerusalem — a standard diplomatic move for a new procurator. Jerusalem was the religious and emotional capital of the province even though Caesarea was the administrative capital. A new governor needed to establish relationships with the Jewish leadership immediately. Festus arrives around AD 59–60.
v.3: Two years have passed since the original conspiracy of Acts 23:12–15, but the hostility has not cooled. The Jewish leadership tries the same strategy again: get Paul transferred to Jerusalem and ambush him on the road. The persistence is remarkable — after two full years, killing Paul remains a priority. Luke’s use of the word ἐνέδραν (enedran, “ambush”) is the same word used for the original plot. The plan hasn’t changed; only the faces have.
vv.4–5: Festus’s refusal is presented as practical rather than principled — Paul is at Caesarea, Festus is heading back there, so the case should be heard there. But the effect is that Festus unwittingly foils the assassination plot for the second time. The Roman bureaucratic preference for keeping prisoners where they are, combined with a new governor’s desire to manage his own caseload, becomes the mechanism of Paul’s protection. Luke’s readers would see providence working through routine administrative decisions.
οἱ ἐν ὑμῖν δυνατοί (hoi en hymin dynatoi) — v.5: “Those among you who are in positions of authority” — literally “the powerful ones among you.” Festus is diplomatically telling the Jewish leadership: send your best people and your strongest case. If there’s something genuinely wrong with this prisoner, prove it in a proper hearing. The new governor is starting from scratch, giving the prosecution a fair opportunity — which also means giving Paul a fair opportunity.
Paul’s Hearing Before Festus
6 And after spending no more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he took his seat on the judgment seat and ordered Paul to be brought.
7 When he arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many serious charges against him which they were unable to prove,
8 while Paul said in his own defense, “I have committed no offense against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against Caesar.”
9 But Festus, wanting to do the Jews a favor, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be tried before me on these charges there?”
10 But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also know very well.
11 If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if none of the things they accuse me of is true, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”
12 Then Festus, after conferring with his council, answered, “To Caesar you have appealed; to Caesar you shall go.”
Translator’s Notes — vv. 6–12:
βήματος (bēmatos) — v.6: The “judgment seat” (βῆμα) in Caesarea has been archaeologically identified — a raised platform in the governor’s palace complex. This is the second bēma in Paul’s story (the first was Gallio’s in Corinth, 18:12). Each time Paul stands before a Roman judgment seat, the verdict is effectively the same: no crime under Roman law. Festus’s brisk scheduling — the hearing happens the day after he arrives in Caesarea — suggests an administrator who wants to clear his predecessor’s backlog.
v.7: Luke’s summary is pointed: “many serious charges ... which they were unable to prove.” The prosecution has had two years to build its case and still cannot produce evidence. The charges are the same three categories as before: offenses against Jewish law, against the temple, and against Caesar. Paul’s denial (v.8) matches all three precisely: “I have committed no offense against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against Caesar.” Point-by-point rebuttal. The stalemate from chapter 24 has simply been restaged.
θέλων τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις χάριν καταθέσθαι (thelōn tois Ioudaiois charin katathesthai) — v.9: “Wanting to do the Jews a favor” — this is the exact same phrase Luke used about Felix in 24:27 (χάριτα καταθέσθαι, “depositing a favor”). The repetition is devastating. Two different governors, two different years, the same political calculus: Paul’s rights are expendable when Jewish political goodwill is at stake. Festus’s proposal to move the trial to Jerusalem is presented as a compromise, but Paul sees through it instantly. A trial in Jerusalem, under political pressure from the Sanhedrin, with an ambush waiting on the road, is not justice.
v.10: Paul’s response is one of the most legally precise speeches in the New Testament. “I am standing before Caesar’s judgment seat” — the governor’s court in a Roman province was, juridically, an extension of the emperor’s authority. Paul is saying: this is already a Caesar-level court; moving it to Jerusalem would be a downgrade, not an upgrade. “Where I ought to be tried” (οὗ με δεῖ κρίνεσθαι) uses the word of divine necessity (δεῖ) — the same word used in 23:11 (“you must testify in Rome”). For Paul, standing before Caesar’s court is not just a legal preference; it’s where he’s supposed to be.
v.10: “As you also know very well” (ὡς καὶ σὺ κάλλιον ἐπιγινώσκεις) — Paul directly accuses Festus of knowing the truth and acting against it. The comparative κάλλιον (“quite well,” “better than you let on”) has an edge to it. Paul is saying: you’ve read the file, you know I’m innocent, and you’re suggesting Jerusalem anyway for political reasons.
v.11: Paul’s statement has a stunning logical structure. He concedes the principle of capital punishment (“if I have committed anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die”) and then denies the factual basis (“but if none of these things is true, no one can hand me over to them”). The word “hand over” (χαρίσασθαι) is significant — it means “to grant as a favor,” the same root as χάρις (“favor”). Paul is using the prosecution’s own language: you want Festus to grant me as a favor; I am invoking my right not to be someone’s political gift.
Καίσαρα ἐπικαλοῦμαι (Kaisara epikaloumai) — v.11: “I appeal to Caesar” — the provocatio ad Caesarem was one of the most ancient and sacred rights of Roman citizenship, established by the Lex Valeria as early as 509 BC and reinforced by Augustus. A Roman citizen had the absolute right to have his case heard by the emperor (or in practice, by the imperial court in Rome). Once the appeal was made, no provincial governor could override it. The case had to be transferred to Rome. Paul has just played the highest legal card in the Roman system.
Καίσαρα ἐπικέκλησαι, ἐπὶ Καίσαρα πορεύσῃ (Kaisara epikeklēsai, epi Kaisara poreusē) — v.12: “To Caesar you have appealed; to Caesar you shall go” — Festus’s reply, after consulting his advisory council (συμβούλιον, symboulion), has a formal, almost formulaic quality — this is the official ratification of the appeal. The symmetrical structure (Caesar ... Caesar) gives it the ring of a legal pronouncement. Festus may even be relieved: the appeal gets this intractable case off his desk and transfers responsibility to Rome. But Luke’s readers know something Festus doesn’t: the divine “must” of 23:11 has just been activated. The mechanism that gets Paul to Rome is his own legal appeal, triggered by a governor’s political cowardice.
King Agrippa and Bernice Visit Festus
13 Now when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived in Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus.
14 And while they were spending many days there, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king, saying, “There is a man who was left behind as a prisoner by Felix,
15 and when I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me about him, asking for a verdict of condemnation against him.
16 I answered them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over any person before the accused meets his accusers face to face and has the opportunity to make a defense against the charges.
17 So when they came together here, I made no delay but took my seat on the judgment seat the very next day and ordered the man to be brought.
18 When his accusers stood up, they brought no charge of the sort of evil I was expecting.
19 Instead, they had certain disputes with him about their own religion, and about a certain Jesus who had died, whom Paul asserted to be alive.
20 And since I was at a loss how to investigate these matters, I asked whether he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there on these charges.
21 But when Paul appealed to be held in custody for the decision of His Majesty the Emperor, I ordered him to be kept until I could send him to Caesar.”
22 And Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear the man myself.” “Tomorrow,” he said, “you will hear him.”
Translator’s Notes — vv. 13–22:
v.13: King Agrippa II was the son of Herod Agrippa I (the king who killed James son of Zebedee in Acts 12:2) and the great-grandson of Herod the Great. He was the last of the Herodian dynasty. Rome had given him a small kingdom in the north (parts of Galilee and Perea) and, importantly, custodianship of the Jerusalem temple — including the right to appoint the high priest. He was therefore the highest-ranking Jewish authority in the region, though his actual political power was limited. His visit to Festus was a diplomatic courtesy call by a client king on a new Roman governor.
v.13: Bernice (also spelled Berenice) was Agrippa’s sister. Their relationship was the subject of persistent rumors in the ancient world — the second-century satirist Juvenal mentions their alleged incest, and Josephus records similar gossip. Whether the rumors were true or malicious is impossible to determine, but they were widespread enough that both Roman and Jewish sources mention them. Bernice later became the famous lover of the Roman general (and future emperor) Titus, who conquered Jerusalem in AD 70. She lived openly with Titus in Rome until public disapproval forced him to send her away. She is one of the most colorful figures in first-century history.
καταδίκην (katadikēn) — v.15: “A verdict of condemnation” — Festus is telling Agrippa that the Jewish leaders didn’t just want a trial; they wanted a predetermined guilty verdict. The word καταδίκη means a sentence of condemnation already decided. Festus frames his refusal as upholding Roman legal principles (v.16): it is not the Roman way to condemn someone without a face-to-face hearing. This is both true and self-serving — Festus is presenting himself to Agrippa as a principled administrator, even though he was quite willing to transfer Paul to Jerusalem for political reasons (v.9).
v.19: Festus’s summary of the case to Agrippa is one of the most revealing moments in Acts, because it shows how the Christian message looked from the outside to an educated Roman official who had no theological investment. The great controversy reduces to “disputes about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, whom Paul asserted to be alive.” That’s it. From Festus’s perspective, the entire affair is an internal Jewish theological quarrel about whether a dead man is actually alive. The understatement is almost comic, but it captures something essential: the resurrection claim is, from a secular standpoint, simply baffling.
περί τινος Ἰησοῦ τεθνηκότος (peri tinos Iēsou tethnēkotos) — v.19: “A certain Jesus who had died” — the casual phrasing is devastating in its banality. τινος (tinos, “a certain”) is dismissive — “some fellow named Jesus.” For Festus, Jesus is a nobody, an obscure provincial figure whose name means nothing. The gap between what the reader knows about Jesus and how Festus describes him is enormous, and Luke exploits it for maximum effect.
τοῦ Σεβαστοῦ (tou Sebastou) — v.21: “His Majesty the Emperor” — the Greek title Σεβαστός (Sebastos) is the direct translation of the Latin Augustus. By this date, the emperor was Nero (reigned AD 54–68). The early years of Nero’s reign (approximately AD 54–62, the so-called quinquennium Neronis) were considered relatively good, governed under the influence of the philosopher Seneca and the prefect Burrus. Paul’s appeal would have been made during this more moderate period. The Nero who would later persecute Christians and, according to tradition, execute Paul, had not yet emerged.
v.22: Agrippa’s response — “I would like to hear the man myself” — echoes the curiosity of another Herod. In Luke 23:8, Herod Antipas “had been wanting to see” Jesus for a long time. Luke is drawing another parallel between Jesus’s passion and Paul’s: both face a Roman governor and a Herodian king. But where Herod Antipas treated Jesus with contempt (Luke 23:11), Agrippa will treat Paul with considerably more respect — the Herodian dynasty has, in Luke’s telling, slightly improved.
Paul Presented Before Agrippa
23 So the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp and entered the audience hall, together with the military commanders and the prominent men of the city, at Festus’s command Paul was brought in.
24 And Festus said, “King Agrippa, and all you who are present with us, you see this man about whom the whole Jewish community has petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer.
25 But I found that he had committed nothing deserving death. And since he himself appealed to His Majesty the Emperor, I decided to send him.
26 But I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him. Therefore I have brought him before you all, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after this examination has taken place, I may have something to write.
27 For it seems unreasonable to me to send a prisoner without also indicating the charges against him.”
Translator’s Notes — vv. 23–27:
μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας (meta pollēs phantasias) — v.23: “With great pomp” — the word φαντασία (phantasia, from which we get “fantasy”) means “spectacle,” “pageantry,” “showy display.” Luke is painting a scene of imperial grandeur: a client king and his sister in their royal attire, flanked by χιλίαρχοι (military tribunes, at least five of them since Caesarea hosted a large garrison) and the civic elite of Caesarea. The audience hall (ἀκροατήριον, akroatērion) was a formal reception room in the governor’s palace. Into this scene of concentrated worldly power, a single prisoner is brought in. The visual contrast is the point.
v.24: Festus’s introduction is revealing. He presents Paul as a man the entire Jewish community wants dead (“shouting that he ought not to live any longer”) — but then immediately says he found nothing deserving death (v.25). The contradiction is left hanging in the air for the audience to process: the accused is apparently innocent, universally hated, and now appealing to the emperor. It’s an extraordinarily strange case, and Festus is candidly admitting he doesn’t know what to do with it.
ἀσφαλές (asphales) — v.26: “Nothing definite” — the word means “firm,” “secure,” “reliable.” Festus doesn’t have a solid charge to write in his report to the emperor. This is his real problem: Roman legal procedure required a written statement of charges (αἰτία, aitia) to accompany a prisoner transferred to the imperial court. Festus is sending a prisoner to Nero without being able to articulate what the prisoner has done wrong. He needs Agrippa’s help to formulate a coherent charge.
τῷ κυρίῳ (tō kyriō) — v.26: “My lord” — Festus refers to the emperor as ὁ κύριος (ho kyrios, “the lord”). This title for the emperor was becoming standard by Nero’s reign, though Augustus and Tiberius had reportedly resisted it. For a Christian reader, the resonance is immediate: the title given to the Roman emperor is the same title given to Jesus throughout the New Testament. The juxtaposition of two “lords” — the one to whom Festus writes and the one about whom Paul testifies — runs as a quiet undercurrent through the entire scene.
v.27: Festus’s concluding remark is dryly comic: “It seems unreasonable to send a prisoner without indicating the charges.” The word ἄλογον (alogon, “unreasonable,” literally “without logic”) is an understatement. A provincial governor sending a prisoner to the emperor without being able to explain why would be a bureaucratic embarrassment at best and a career risk at worst. Festus needs this hearing not for Paul’s benefit but for his own: he needs Agrippa to help him figure out what crime to charge Paul with. The entire grand audience — the pomp, the dignitaries, the royal visitors — has been assembled because a Roman governor cannot think of what to write on a form.
General Notes on the Chapter
Acts 25 is structured around a devastating irony: Paul is innocent, everyone involved effectively admits it, and yet he remains in chains. Festus finds nothing deserving death (v.25). The prosecution still cannot prove its charges (v.7). And the purpose of the grand hearing before Agrippa is not to determine Paul’s guilt but to help Festus write a coherent charge sheet. The entire apparatus of Roman justice — governor, king, military, civic elite — is assembled around a prisoner whose crime no one can define.
The appeal to Caesar (v.11) is the narrative hinge of the entire latter half of Acts. Everything from chapter 21 onward has been building toward this moment: the arrest, the trials, the delays, the political maneuvering — all of it converges on Paul’s three words: “I appeal to Caesar.” From here forward, the plot is locked on Rome. No governor can release him, no Jewish authority can reach him, and no ambush can stop him. The divine “must” of 23:11 has found its legal mechanism. God’s plan and Roman law have converged.
Festus’s summary of the case to Agrippa (v.19) deserves special attention as a study in perspective. To Festus, the issue is “disputes about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, whom Paul asserted to be alive.” This is the resurrection — the event that for Paul is the center of all history — described by a puzzled Roman bureaucrat as a peculiar claim about a dead man. Luke is not being ironic at Festus’s expense; he’s showing his readers what the gospel looks like from the outside, stripped of all theological language. The claim is simple: a dead man is alive. Everything else — the theology, the ethics, the mission, the church — flows from whether that claim is true.
The parallel between Paul and Jesus continues to deepen. Both stand before a Roman governor and a member of the Herodian dynasty. Both are declared innocent yet not released. Both become pawns in political negotiations between Roman and Jewish authorities. Luke is telling his readers that Paul’s story follows the contours of his master’s story — and that the same providential hand that guided Jesus through betrayal, trial, and death to resurrection is guiding Paul through arrest, trial, and imprisonment toward Rome.
The stage is now set for one of the great speeches in Acts: Paul before King Agrippa in chapter 26. The audience is the largest and most distinguished Paul has ever faced — a king, a governor, military commanders, civic leaders. And the occasion is not a trial (Paul has already appealed to Caesar) but a hearing designed to help a confused governor figure out what to write on a prisoner’s transfer form. Paul will use the opportunity to deliver the fullest and most personal account of his conversion and mission in the entire New Testament.