Acts 26:1-23

Paul's Defence of Christianity before King Agrippa, his Sister, and the Procurator Festus, 1-23.

This famous apologia of St. Paul consists of four divisions. The first, Acts 26:2-3, consists of a few courteous words addressed to the distinguished prince before whom he was summoned to plead his cause and that of his brethren in the faith. In the second, Acts 26:4-8, the apostle, after glancing at certain portions of his own early career, breaks at once into the all-important subject of the promised Messiah. In the third, Acts 26:9-18, he relates the story of that wondrous episode in his own life which induced him to become a Christian; and then in the fourth division, Acts 26:19-23, he comes back to his own work the preaching that a suffering Messiah had come, had died, and had risen again.

Here, as in the case of the other speeches and addresses in these ‘Acts,' we must remember we have only the barest skeleton of the original ‘apology' of Paul. Only once or twice, perhaps, in this speech so briefly reported by the compiler of the history, do we possess the very words used, when perhaps some marked emphasis on the part of the speaker, or the exceeding importance of the utterances themselves, left an indelible impress on the memory of the reporter, who, when he came to record this memorable passage in the life-story of Paul, was moved by the Holy Spirit to write them down. Among these, most likely, some of the bitter self-accusations of Acts 26:11, and especially the words spoken by that Radiant One from heaven (Acts 26:14; Acts 26:16-18).

The ‘Apologia.'

After congratulating himself that on this occasion he was about to speak before one not only high in office and in dignity, but also thoroughly versed in all Jewish customs and questions, Paul proceeded to state exactly how it stood with him viz., that he, though well known as first a student and then a rigid professor of the strictest school of Pharisaism, was positively persecuted because he held and taught what really all the Pharisee school held and taught, viz. the hope of a resurrection from the dead. Was not this the grand hope to which all the elaborate symbolism the temple service, which never rested day or night pointed? [The hope and expectation of the resurrection and the endless life was the crown of all the Messianic teaching of the Old Testament.] After what must have been a stately and magnificent exordium, which must, with its convincing arguments [many of which we can find now in the Epistle to the Hebrews] and passionate earnestness, have brought conviction home to many a Pharisee heart in that brilliant assembly; then of a sudden the inspired apostle changed his style and subject, and told the listening audience the wondrous story of the meeting on the Damascus road, and the effect on himself of the sight of the blinding glory of the cloud; the low passionate voice of the speaker, as he repeated the words his God had spoken to him that morning by the way, must have thrilled king and Sanhedrist as they bent forward to catch the awful sayings which had moved Saul, the learned and admired Pharisee, to throw up his brilliant career, and to cast his lot in with the despised Nazarene. He concluded the strange recital with, ‘Well, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; and now I am standing before you, hunted down by all these my countrymen, because I obeyed the voice of the Eternal, and preached in many a city, to congregations composed of Gentiles as well as Jews, the truth I had come to learn, that the Messiah of the prophets and Moses could only be a suffering Messiah, that He must die, must rise again, the first-born of a new and deathless race a race to be made up of Gentiles as well as Jews.' At this point he was interrupted by the Roman governor Festus.