Acts Chapter 25 verse 11 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 11. - If then I am a wrong, doer for for if I be an offender, A.V. and T.R.; and for or, A.V.; if none of those things is true for if there be none of these things, A.V.; can give me up for may deliver me, A.V. I refuse not; οὐ παραιτοῦμαι. Here only in the Acts, and three times in Luke 14. Elsewhere, four times in the pastoral Epistles, and twice in Hebrews. Frequent in classical Greek. No man can give me up (χαρίσασθαι); as ver. 16, "to hand over as a matter of complaisance." St. Paul saw at once the danger he was in from Festus's inclination to curry favor with the Jews. With his usual fearlessness, therefore, and perhaps with the same quickness of temper which made him call Ananias "a whited wall," he said, "No man (not even the mighty Roman governor) may make me over to them at their request, to please them," and with the ready wit which characterized him, and with a knowledge of the rights which the Lex Julia, in addition to other laws, conferred on him as a Roman citizen, he immediately added, I appeal unto Caesar.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(11) No man may deliver me unto them.--Literally, no man may give me up to them as a favour. The words show that he saw through the simulated fairness of the procurator, and did not shrink from showing that he did so.I appeal unto Caesar.--The history of this right of appeal affords a singular illustration of the manner in which the republic had been transformed into a despotic monarchy. Theoretically the emperor was but the imperator, or commander-in-chief of the armies of the state, appointed by the senate, and acting under its direction. Consuls were still elected every year, and went through the shadowy functions of their office. Many of the provinces (see Notes on Acts 13:7; Acts 18:12), were directly under the control of the senate, and were accordingly governed by proconsuls. But Augustus had contrived to concentrate in himself all the powers that in the days of the republic had checked and balanced the exercise of individual authority. He was supreme pontiff, and as such regulated the religion of the state; permanent censor, and as such could give or recall the privileges of citizenship at his pleasure. The Tribunicia potestas, which had originally been conferred on the tribunes of the plebs so that they might protect members of their order who appealed to them against the injustice of patrician magistrates, was attached to his office. As such he became the final Court of Appeal from all subordinate tribunals, and so, by a subtle artifice, what had been intended as a safeguard to freedom became the instrument of a centralised tyranny. With this aspect of the matter St. Paul had, of course, nothing to do. It was enough for him that by this appeal he delivered himself from the injustice of a weak and temporising judge, and made his long-delayed journey to Rome a matter of moral certainty.