Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/622

 utterly refused to bring the prisoner to Jerusalem, but required the presence of the accusers in the proper seat of the supreme provincial administration of justice at Caesarea. After a ten days' stay in Jerusalem, he returned to the civil capital, and with a commendable activity in his judicial proceedings, on the very next day after his arrival in Caesarea, summoned Paul and his accusers before him. The Jews of course, told their old story, and brought out against Paul many grievous complaints, which they could not prove. His only reply to all this accusation without testimony was—"Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended in any particular." But Festus having been in some way influenced to favor the designs of the Jews, urged Paul to go up to Jerusalem, there to be tried by the supreme religious court of his own nation. Paul replied by a bold and distinct assertion of his rights, as a Roman citizen, before the tribunal of his liege lord and sovran: "I stand before Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. If I am guilty of anything that deserves death, I refuse not to die; but if I have done none of these things of which they accuse me, no man can deliver me into their hands. " This solemn concluding formula put him at once far beyond the reach of all inferior tyranny; henceforth no governor in the world could direct the fate of the appellant Roman citizen, throwing before himself the adamantine aegis of Roman law. Festus himself, though evidently displeased at this turn of events, could not resist the course of law; but after a conference with this council, replied to Paul—"Dost thou appeal to Caesar? To Caesar shalt thou go."

While Paul was still detained at Caesarea, after this final reference of his case to the highest judicial authority in the world, Festus was visited at Caesarea, by Herod Agrippa II. king of Iturea, Trachonitis, Abilene, and other northern regions of Palestine, the son of that Herod Agrippa whose character and actions were connected with the incidents of Peter's life. He, passing through Judea with his sister Bernice, stopped at Caesarea, to pay their compliments to the new Roman governor. During their stay there, Festus, with a view to find rational entertainment for his royal guests, bethought himself of Paul's case, as one that would be likely to interest them, connected as the prisoner's fate seemed to be, with the religious and legal matters of that peculiar people to