μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ φησίν, says with a loud voice. Probably what had last fallen from St Paul seemed to Festus little better than lunatic ravings. The Gospel of the Cross did appear as ‘foolishness’ to the Gentile world. And this Gospel he had just heard in all its fulness: that the Christ by suffering of death and rising to life again should be the source of true enlightenment both to Jews and Gentiles.

μαίνῃ Παῦλε, Paul, thou art mad. μαίνομαι occurs in the next verse, and the two places should accord, though sentiment clings to ‘Paul, thou art beside thyself.’

τὰ πολλά σε γράμματα εἰς μανίαν περιτρέπει, much learning doth make thee mad. Literally, ‘doth turn thee to madness.’ For γράμματα in the sense of ‘learning’ ‘letters,’ cf. John 7:15. It may be also that there is an allusion to the γράμματα, ‘the Jewish Scriptures,’ to which the Apostle had been so largely appealing. As a religious literature no nation, not even the polished Greeks, had anything to place in comparison with the sacred books of the Jews.

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Old Testament