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 of which these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.
Read Chapter 25
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Some one might say, How is it, that having been told, You must also bear witness of Me in Rome, Acts 23:11, he, as if unbelieving, did this? God forbid: nay, he did it, because he so strongly believed. For it would have been a tempting of God to be bold on account of that declaration, and to cast himself into numberless dangers, and to say: Let us see if God is able even thus to deliver me. But not so does Paul; no, he does his part, all that in him lies, committing the whole to God. Quietly also he reproves the governor: for, If, says he, I am an offender, you do well: but if not, why do you give me up? No man, he says, may sacrifice me. He put him in fear, so that even if he wished, he could not sacrifice him to them; while also as an excuse to them he had Paul's appeal to allege. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Have you appealed unto Cæsar? Unto Cæsar shall you go. And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Cæsarea to salute Festus.
