But Festus, willing to do the Jews a favor, answered Paul, and said, Will you go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?
Read Chapter 25
John Chrysostom
AD 407
I am not giving you up to them— but this was the fact— and he leaves the point to his own choice, that by this mark of respect he might get him to yield: since his was the sentence, and it would have been too barefaced, when he had been convicted of nothing here, to take him back there. But Paul said, At Cæsar's tribunal am I standing, etc.
Wherefore he too gratifies the Jews, the whole people, and the city. Such being the case, Paul terrifies him also, using a human weapon for his defence. Then said Paul, I stand at Cæsar's judgment seat, where I ought to be judged; to the Jews have I done no wrong, as you very well know. For if I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Cæsar.
