Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 25:11

"If then I am a wrong-doer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die; but if none of those things is [true] whereof these accuse me, no man can give me up unto them. I appeal unto Caesar." — Acts 25:11 (ASV)

Paul knew that to return to Jerusalem would place him in serious jeopardy. It would likely involve being turned over to the Sanhedrin; for once he was in Jerusalem, the Jewish authorities would pressure Festus to have Paul turned over to them for trial on the charge of profaning the temple. “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried,” he asserted. But being unsure as to just what action Festus might take in the matter if left at that, Paul went on to claim one final right he had as a Roman citizen: “I appeal to Caesar!” Roman law at this time protected Roman citizens by their right of appealing to the emperor. Such appeals could only be made in cases that went beyond the normal jurisdiction of a governor—particularly where the threat of violent coercion or capital punishment by provincial administrators was present. It may seem somewhat strange that Paul should have preferred to appeal to the emperor Nero (A. D. 54–68), the persecutor of Christians at Rome, rather than continue to entrust his case to Festus, whether at Caesarea or Jerusalem. But the early years of Nero’s rule, under the influence of the Stoic philosopher Seneca and the prefect of the praetorian guard Afranius Burrus, were looked upon as something of a Golden Age. There was little in A. D. 60 that warned of Nero’s character and relations with Christianity during the last five years of his life.