Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
Tertullus for the prosecution
Acts 24:1-9
1 After five days, the high priest, Ananias, came down with certain elders and an orator, one Tertullus. They informed the governor against Paul. · WEB
A hired advocate opens with flattery and lays three charges, of which only one is a crime and none is supported by a witness.
The prosecution arrives five days later, and its composition is significant. The high priest Ananias comes down in person, with elders, and with an orator, one Tertullus — a professional advocate engaged to argue before a Roman court in the proper forms. The nation's religious leadership has hired counsel to convict one of its own.
The opening is flattery, and it is laid on thickly: peace enjoyed under Felix, prosperity coming by your foresight, accepted in all ways and in all places, most excellent Felix, with all thankfulness. The conventional courtesy of the courtroom is being used at full stretch. It is also, on the record of that administration, close to the opposite of the truth; Felix's tenure was marked by disorder and by suppression, and the province had no cause for gratitude.
Then three charges, and they are worth separating because they are of three different kinds.
We have found this man to be a plague, an instigator of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world. This is the serious one, the only one a Roman governor could act on, and it is the charge of sedition — stirring riots across the empire. It is also unsupported. No incident is named, no place, no date.
A ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. This is not a crime at all under Roman law, and the phrase is the earliest name the movement was given by its opponents, taken from the town they thought settled the matter. Including it signals what the prosecution really objects to.
He even tried to profane the temple, and we arrested him. The verb has quietly weakened. In the temple courts the shout was that he had brought Greeks in and defiled the place; here it is an attempt. The strongest charge has become an allegation of intent, because the supposed evidence — a man from Ephesus seen in the city — will not survive a question.
And the arrest is described as their own orderly act. What actually happened was a mob beating him on the steps until soldiers ran down and pulled him out. Some English Bibles carry a further sentence at this point, in which the advocate complains that the tribune took Paul from them by force; the oldest copies do not have it, and without it the sentence stands as an admission dressed as a procedure.
The close is a piece of advocacy that concedes the weakness of the whole: By examining him yourself you may ascertain all these things. The prosecution invites the judge to establish its case for it. The Jews also joined in the attack, affirming that these things were so — which is corroboration by chorus rather than by witness, and the one thing the case never produces is a person who saw anything.
settled What this mark means