XLI. FELIX’S HOPE FOR MONEY FROM PAUL

Acts 24:26.—“He (Felix) hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.”

It is observed by Lardner [Vol. i. p. 27, 8vo. edition.] , that Felix (it might be thought) could have small hopes of receiving money from such a prisoner as Paul, had he not recollected his telling him, on a former interview, that “after many years he came to bring alms to his nation, and offerings.”—Hence he probably supposed, that the alms might not yet be all distributed, or if they were, that a public benefactor would soon find friends to release him.

The observation is curious, and in confirmation of its truth, I will add, that the personal appearance of Paul, when he was brought before Felix, was certainly not such as would give the governor reason to believe that he had wherewithal to purchase his own freedom, but quite the contrary. For a passage in the Acts (22:28) certainly conveys very satisfactory, though indirect, evidence, that the Apostle wore poverty in his looks at the very period in question. When Lysias, the chief captain at Jerusalem, had been apprized that he was a Roman, he could scarcely give credit to the fact; and, being further assured of it by Paul himself, he said, “With a great sum obtained I this freedom,” manifestly implying a suspicion of Paul’s veracity, whose appearance bespoke no such means of procuring citizenship. The cupidity, therefore, of Felix was no doubt excited, as has been said, by his recollecting the errand on which his prisoner had come so lately to Jerusalem.

And this, moreover, furnishes the true explanation of the orders which Felix (very far from a merciful or indulgent officer) gave to the keeper of Paul, “to let him have liberty, and to forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him;” a free admission of his friends being necessary, in order that they might furnish him with the ransom.

It is true that there is no coincidence here between independent writers, but surely every unprejudiced mind must admit that there is an extremely nice, minute, and undesigned harmony between the speech of Paul and the subsequent conduct of Felix; though the cause and effect are so far from being traced by the author of the Acts, that it may be doubted whether he saw any connection subsisting between them. Surely, I repeat, such a harmony must convince us that it is no fictitious or forged narrative that we are reading, but a true and very accurate detail of an actual occurrence.