Acts Chapter 23 verse 26 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 26. - Greeting for sendeth greeting, A.V. Governor; ἡγεμών, as ver. 24; propraetor of an imperial province, as distinguished from the ἀνθύπατος, or proconsul, who governed the provinces which were in the patronage of the senate. Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7, 8) was a proconsul, and so was Gallio (Acts 18:10); Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:2) and Felix were procurators, ἡγεμόνες, only in a looser sense, as the more exact name of their office was ἐπίτροπος procurator. Only, as they were appointed by the emperor, and often exercised the full functions of a legatus Caesaris, they were called ἡγεμόνες as well as proprietors. Felix, called by Tacitus, Antonius Felix ('Hist.,' 5:9), was the brother of Pallas, the freedman and favorite of Claudius. He as well as his brother Felix had originally been the slave of Antonia the mother of the Emperor Claudius; and hence the name Antonins Felix, or, as he was sometimes otherwise celled, Claudius Felix. Tacitus, after mentioning that Claudius appointed as governors of Judaea sometimes knights and sometimes freedmen, adds that among the last Autenius Felix ruled this province with boundless cruelty and in the most arbitrary manner, showing by his abuse of power his servile origin. He adds that he married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, so that he was Mark Antony's grandson-in-law, while Claudius was Antony's grandson. But see Acts 24:24, note. In the 'Annals' (12. 5) Tacitus further speaks of the incompetence of Felix to govern, stirring up rebellions by the means he took to repress them, and of the utter lawlessness and confusion to which the province was reduced by the maladministration of Felix and his colleague, Ventidius Cumanus ("cut pars provinciae habebatur"). He adds that civil war would have broken out if Quadratus, the Governor of Syria, had not interposed, and secured the punishment of Cumanus, while Felix, his equal in guilt, was continued in his government. This was owing, no doubt, to the influence of Pallas. The same influence secured the continued government to Felix upon Nero's accession, Pallas being all-powerful with Agrippina. Such was "the most excellent governor Felix." For further accounts of him, see Josephus ('Bell. Jud.,' 2. 12:8; 13.), who ignores his share in the government as the partner of Cumauus, and dates his appointment subsequently to the con-detonation of Cumanus at Rome, and is also there silent as to his misdeeds. (For further accounts of Felix, see 'Ant. Jud.,' 20. 7:1, 2; 8:5-7, which relate his adulterous marriage with Drusilla, and some of his murders and cruelties.)

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(26) Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent governor Felix.--The letter may have been sent unsealed, or a copy of it may have been given to St. Paul or St. Luke after his arrival. What we have obviously purports to be a verbal reproduction of it. We note (1) that the epithet "most excellent" is that which St. Luke uses of Theophilus, to whom he dedicates both the Gospel and the Acts (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1), and (2) that the formal salutation, "greeting," is the same as that used in the letter of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:23) and in the Epistle of St. James (James 1:1).