Originally Posted by
TPATC
After Saint Paul was led before the deputy (governor), the Acts of the Apostles continues in Chapter XXV:
“2. Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him. 3. And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait on the way to kill him. 4. But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly thither. 5. Let them therefore, said he, which are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him. 7. And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove. 8. While he answered for himself, ‘Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all.’â€86
In order to understand this terrible tragedy, one must bear in mind that Saint Paul was a devout man and illuminated by the grace of God, to such an extent that he is worthy of being regarded as one of the greatest saints of Christianity. Nevertheless, the Jews, with their natural falsity and their insane tenacity, fell into a fury with him in the manner described in the preceding passages of the Holy Bible. The problem was sharpened still more as a result that not only the Jews from Palestine, but also those from the most different parts of the world, exposed their murderous and godless instincts, and that not only the sect of the Pharisees but also the Sadducees, who were opponents of the former. It was not individuals, isolated and without representation, who oozed such maliciousness, but the high priests, the scribes, the leading personages and most illustrious men of Israel; all cut from the same cloth.