Acts 26:24

Verse Acts 26:24. Paul, thou art beside thyself] "Thou art mad, Paul!" "Thy great learning hath turned thee into a madman." As we sometimes say, thou art cracked, and thy brain is turned. By the τα πολλα γραμματα it is likely that Festus meant no more than this, that Paul had got such a vast variety of knowledge, that his brain was overcharged with it: for, in this speech, Paul makes no particular show of what we call learning; for he quotes none of their celebrated authors, as he did on other occasions; see Acts 17:28. But he here spoke of spiritual things, of which Festus, as a Roman heathen, could have no conception; and this would lead him to conclude that Paul was actually deranged. This is not an uncommon case with many professing Christianity; who, when a man speaks on experimental religion, on the life of God in the soul of man-of the knowledge of salvation, by the remission of sins-of the witness of the Spirit, c., c., things essential to that Christianity by which the soul is saved, are ready to cry out, Thou art mad: he is an enthusiast: that is, a religious madman one who is not worthy to be regarded and yet, strange to tell, these very persons who thus cry out are surprised that Festus should have supposed that Paul was beside himself!