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== Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament <ref name="term_55885" /> ==
== Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament <ref name="term_55885" /> ==
<p> No information is forthcoming concerning [[Porcius]] Festus, who succeeded [[Felix]] in the procuratorship of [[Judaea]] , other than that supplied by Acts 24:27; Acts 26:32 and by Josephus, <i> [[Ant]] </i> . xx. viii. 9f., ix. 1, and <i> Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) </i> II xiv. 1. According to Josephus, [[Festus]] set himself with vigour and success to restore order to his province, which he found distracted with sedition and overrun by bands of robbers. ‘He caught the greatest part of the robbers, and destroyed a great many of them.’ More particularly it is added that he ‘sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly, those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them and those that were his followers also.’ The only other incident in the administration of Festus which [[Josephus]] relates shows him, in association with King [[Agrippa]] II., withstanding ‘the chief men of Jerusalem’ ( <i> Ant </i> . xx. viii. 11), and permitting an appeal to Caesar-an interesting combination in view of the narrative in Acts. The circumstances, as stated by Josephus, were those: Agrippa had made an addition to his palace at Jerusalem, which enabled him to observe from his dining-hall what was done in the Temple. [[Thereupon]] ‘the chief men of Jerusalem’ erected a wall to obstruct the view from the palace. Festus supported Agrippa in demanding the removal of this wall, but yielded to the request of the [[Jews]] that the whole matter might be referred to Nero, who upheld the appeal and reversed the judgment of his procurator. </p> <p> Josephus evidently regards Festus as a wise and righteous official, affording an agreeable contrast to Albinus, his successor, of whom he says that ‘there was not any sort of wickedness that could be named but he had a hand in it’ ( <i> Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) </i> II. xiv. 1). </p> <p> [[Turning]] to the [[Book]] of Acts, we find that there, while justice is done to the promptness with which Festus addressed himself to his duties and to the lip-homage he was ready to pay to ‘the custom of the Romans,’ he appears in a less favourable light, and the outstanding fact meets us of the estimate which St. [[Paul]] formed of him. St. Paul preferred to take his chance with [[Nero]] to leaving his cause to be disposed of by this fussy, plausible official. ‘I appeal unto Caesar,’ is the lasting condemnation of Festus. He was persuaded that the [[Apostle]] was innocent of the ‘many and grievous, charges’ brought against him, yet he was quite prepared to sacrifice him, if thereby he ‘could gain favour with the Jews’; hence the preposterous proposal of a re-trial at Jerusalem. The noble use which St. Paul made shortly after of the opportunity given him by Festus to speak for himself before Agrippa and [[Berenice]] should not blind us to the callousness of the man who planned that scene with all its pomp and circumstance, and deliberately exploited a prisoner in bonds for the entertainment of his [[Herodian]] guests. Festus died after holding his office for a brief term-‘scarcely two years’ (Schürer, <i> History of the [[Jewish]] People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] </i> I. ii. [1890] 185). See articleDates for discussion of the chronology of the procuratorship of Festus. </p> <p> Literature.-S. Buss, <i> [[Roman]] Law and History in the NT </i> , 1901, p. 390; C. H. Turner, ‘Eusebius’ [[Chronology]] of Felix and Festus’ in <i> [[Journal]] of [[Theological]] [[Studies]] </i> iii. [1901-02] 120; G. H. Morrison, <i> The [[Footsteps]] of the [[Flock]] </i> , 1904. p. 362; M. Jones. <i> St. Paul the [[Orator]] </i> , 1910, p. 212; A. Maclaren, <i> [[Expositions]] </i> : ‘Acts, ch. xiii.-end,’ 1907, p. 322. </p> <p> G. P. Gould. </p>
<p> No information is forthcoming concerning [[Porcius]] Festus, who succeeded [[Felix]] in the procuratorship of [[Judaea]] , other than that supplied by Acts 24:27; Acts 26:32 and by Josephus, <i> [[Ant]] </i> . xx. viii. 9f., ix. 1, and <i> Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) </i> II xiv. 1. According to Josephus, [[Festus]] set himself with vigour and success to restore order to his province, which he found distracted with sedition and overrun by bands of robbers. ‘He caught the greatest part of the robbers, and destroyed a great many of them.’ More particularly it is added that he ‘sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly, those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them and those that were his followers also.’ The only other incident in the administration of Festus which [[Josephus]] relates shows him, in association with King [[Agrippa]] II., withstanding ‘the chief men of Jerusalem’ ( <i> Ant </i> . xx. viii. 11), and permitting an appeal to Caesar-an interesting combination in view of the narrative in Acts. The circumstances, as stated by Josephus, were those: Agrippa had made an addition to his palace at Jerusalem, which enabled him to observe from his dining-hall what was done in the Temple. [[Thereupon]] ‘the chief men of Jerusalem’ erected a wall to obstruct the view from the palace. Festus supported Agrippa in demanding the removal of this wall, but yielded to the request of the [[Jews]] that the whole matter might be referred to Nero, who upheld the appeal and reversed the judgment of his procurator. </p> <p> Josephus evidently regards Festus as a wise and righteous official, affording an agreeable contrast to Albinus, his successor, of whom he says that ‘there was not any sort of wickedness that could be named but he had a hand in it’ ( <i> Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) </i> II. xiv. 1). </p> <p> [[Turning]] to the [[Book]] of Acts, we find that there, while justice is done to the promptness with which Festus addressed himself to his duties and to the lip-homage he was ready to pay to ‘the custom of the Romans,’ he appears in a less favourable light, and the outstanding fact meets us of the estimate which St. [[Paul]] formed of him. St. Paul preferred to take his chance with [[Nero]] to leaving his cause to be disposed of by this fussy, plausible official. ‘I appeal unto Caesar,’ is the lasting condemnation of Festus. He was persuaded that the [[Apostle]] was innocent of the ‘many and grievous, charges’ brought against him, yet he was quite prepared to sacrifice him, if thereby he ‘could gain favour with the Jews’; hence the preposterous proposal of a re-trial at Jerusalem. The noble use which St. Paul made shortly after of the opportunity given him by Festus to speak for himself before Agrippa and [[Berenice]] should not blind us to the callousness of the man who planned that scene with all its pomp and circumstance, and deliberately exploited a prisoner in bonds for the entertainment of his [[Herodian]] guests. Festus died after holding his office for a brief term-‘scarcely two years’ (Schürer, <i> History of the [[Jewish]] People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] </i> I. ii. [1890] 185). See articleDates for discussion of the chronology of the procuratorship of Festus. </p> <p> Literature.-S. Buss, <i> [[Roman]] Law and History in the NT </i> , 1901, p. 390; C. H. Turner, ‘Eusebius’ [[Chronology]] of Felix and Festus’ in <i> Journal of Theological Studies </i> iii. [1901-02] 120; G. H. Morrison, <i> The [[Footsteps]] of the [[Flock]] </i> , 1904. p. 362; M. Jones. <i> St. Paul the [[Orator]] </i> , 1910, p. 212; A. Maclaren, <i> [[Expositions]] </i> : ‘Acts, ch. xiii.-end,’ 1907, p. 322. </p> <p> G. P. Gould. </p>
          
          
== People's Dictionary of the Bible <ref name="term_70081" /> ==
== People's Dictionary of the Bible <ref name="term_70081" /> ==
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== Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary <ref name="term_80688" /> ==
== Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary <ref name="term_80688" /> ==
<p> Portius [[Festus]] succeeded [[Felix]] in the government of Judea, A.D. 60. Felix his predecessor, to oblige the Jews, when he resigned his government, left St. [[Paul]] in bonds at Caesarea, in Palestine, Acts 24:27 . Festus, at his first coming to Jerusalem, was entreated by the principal [[Jews]] to condemn St. Paul, or to order him up to Jerusalem, they having conspired to assassinate him in the way. Festus answered, that it was not customary with the Romans to condemn any man without hearing him; but said that he would hear their accusations against St. Paul at Caesarea. From these accusations St. Paul appealed to Caesar, and by this means secured himself from the prosecution of the Jews, and the wicked intentions of Festus, whom they had corrupted. </p>
<p> Portius [[Festus]] succeeded [[Felix]] in the government of Judea, A.D. 60. Felix his predecessor, to oblige the Jews, when he resigned his government, left St. [[Paul]] in bonds at Caesarea, in Palestine, Acts 24:27 . Festus, at his first coming to Jerusalem, was entreated by the principal [[Jews]] to condemn St. Paul, or to order him up to Jerusalem, they having conspired to assassinate him in the way. Festus answered, that it was not customary with the Romans to condemn any man without hearing him; but said that he would hear their accusations against St. Paul at Caesarea. From these accusations St. Paul appealed to Caesar, and by this means secured himself from the prosecution of the Jews, and the wicked intentions of Festus, whom they had corrupted. </p>
       
== Whyte's Dictionary of Bible Characters <ref name="term_197264" /> ==
<p> A SINGLE word will sometimes immortalise a man. Am I my brother's keeper? was all that [[Cain]] said. And, What will you give me? was all that [[Judas]] said. One of his own words will sometimes, all unintentionally, sum up a man's whole past life. A man will sometimes discover to us his deepest heart, and will seal down on himself his own everlasting destiny, just with one of his own spoken words. By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. And as [[Paul]] thus spake for himself, [[Festus]] said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. With that one word Festus ever after it is known to us quite as well as if Tacitus himself had written a whole chapter about Festus. This is enough: Festus was that [[Roman]] procurator who said with a loud voice that Paul was beside himself. That one word, with its loud intonation, sets Festus sufficiently before us. </p> <p> Their ever-thoughtful ever-watchful Lord had taken care to prepare His apostles for this insult also. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the [[Master]] of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them that are of His household. And the loud and unbecoming outbreak of Festus would have staggered Paul much more than it did, had he not recollected at that moment that this very same thing had been said about his Master also. And that not by heathens like [[Pilate]] and Festus, but by those whom the [[Gospels]] call His friends. "And when His friends heard of it they went out to lay hold on Him, for they said, He is beside Himself." And many of the Jews, as soon as they had heard His sermon on the [[Good]] Shepherd, of all His sermons, had nothing else to say about the [[Preacher]] but this, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him? </p> <p> First, then, as to our Master's own madness. It is plain, and beyond dispute, that either He was mad, or they were who so insulted Him. For He loved nothing that they loved. He hated nothing that they hated. He feared nothing that they feared. Birth, wealth, station, and such like things, without which other men cannot hold up their heads; of all that He emptied Himself, and made Himself of no reputation. And, to complete the contrast and the antipathy, the things that all other men despise and spurn and pity He pronounces to be alone blessed. [[Meekness]] under insults and injuries, patience amid persecutions, poverty of spirit, humbleness of mind, readiness to serve rather than to sit in honour and eat,-these are the only things that have praise and reward of Paul's Master. The things, in short, we would almost as soon die as have them for our portion. And the things we would almost as soon not live at all as not possess, or expect one day to possess, [[Jesus]] [[Christ]] cared nothing at all for such things. [[Absolutely]] nothing. It was no wonder that her neighbours and kinsfolk condoled with His mother who had borne such a son. It was no wonder that they worked incessantly upon His brethren till they also said, Yes; He must be beside himself; let us go and lay hold on him. </p> <p> Now, Paul came as near to his Master's madness as any man has ever come, or ever will come, in this world. For, what made Festus break out in that so indecent way was because Paul both spake and acted on the absolute and eternal truth of the things we speak about with bated breath, and only faintly and inoffensively affect to believe. Paul had been telling his royal auditors what he never wearied telling; his undeserved, unexpected, and unparalleled conversion. His manner of life before his conversion also, when he put this very same word into Festus's mouth. I was exceedingly "mad," he said, against the saints. And at midday, O king, he said, addressing himself with an orator's instinct to Agrippa, a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, and a voice speaking to me in the [[Hebrew]] tongue-and so on, till Festus broke out upon him, as we read. Now, if you had come through the half of Paul's experience, we also would have charged you also with being beside yourself. To have bad such bloody hands; to have been carried through such a conversion; to have had, time after time, such visions and revelations of the Lord; and, especially, to have had such experiences and such attainments in the divine life-certainly, to us you would have been beside yourself. To have seen you actually and in everything counting all things, your very best things, your very virtues and very graces, to be but dung, that you might win Christ; to have seen you continually crucified with Christ; what else could we have made of you? How else could we have defended ourselves against you, but by calling you mad? </p> <p> But Paul had more than one experience that made him appear mad to other men. And another of those experiences was his unparalleled experience and insight into sin. Paul's sinfulness of his own heart, when he was for a moment left alone with it, always drove him again near to distraction. As the sight of the ghost drove [[Hamlet]] mad, so did the sight of sin and death drive Paul. And not Paul only, but no less than our Lord Himself. It ever our Lord was almost beside; Himself, it was once at the sight, and at the approach, and at the contact, of sin. We water down the terrible words and say that He was sore amazed and very heavy. But it was far more than that. A terror at sin, a horror and a loathing at sin, took possession of our Lord's soul when He was about to be made sin, till it carried Him away beyond all experience and all imagination of mortal men. And the servant, in his measure, was as his Master in this also. For, as often as Paul's eyes were again opened to see the sinfulness of his own sin, there was only one other thing in heaven or earth that kept his brain from reeling in her distracted globe. And the sight of that other thing only made his brain reel the more. And so it has often been with far smaller men than Paul. When we ourselves see sin; even such a superficial sight of sin as [[God]] in His mercy sometimes gives us; both body and soul reel and stagger till He has to hold us up with His hand. And were it not that there is a fountain filled with something else than rose-water, there would be more people in the pond than the mother of Christian's children. What a mad-house because of the sinfulness of sin the church of God's saints would be were it not for His own blood! And this goes on with Paul till he has a doctrine of himself and of sin, such that he cannot preach it too often for great sinners like himself. No wonder, with his heart of such an exquisite texture and sensibility, and continually made such an awful battle-ground, no wonder Paul was sometimes nothing short of mad. And why should it be so difficult to believe that there may be men even in these dregs of time; one man here, and another there, who are still patterns to God, and to themselves, and to saints and angels, of the same thing? [[Beside]] themselves, that is, with the dominion and the pollution of sin. Was there not a proverb in the ancient schools that bears with some pungency upon this subject? It is in Latin, and I cannot borrow it at the moment. But I am certain there is a saying somewhere about a great experiment and a great exhibition being made on an insignificant and a worthless subject. </p> <p> I am old enough to remember the time when the universal London press, led by [[Punch]] and the Saturday Review, week after week, mocked, trampled on, cried madman at, and tried to silence, young Spurgeon, very much as Festus tried to trample on and silence Paul. But Punch lived to lay a fine tribute on Spurgeon's grave. It was true of Paul, and it was true of Spurgeon, and it will be true, in its measure, of every like-minded minister, as well as of all truly [[Christian]] men, what old Matthew [[Mead]] says in his [[Almost]] Christian. "If," says old Matthew, "the preaching of Christ is to the world foolishness, then it is no wonder that the disciples of Christ are to the world fools. For, according to the Gospel, a man must die in order to live; he must be empty, who would be full; he must be lost, who would be found; he must have nothing, who would have all things; he must be blind, who would see; he must be condemned, who would be redeemed. He is no true Christian." adds Mead, "who is not the world's fool." And, yet, no! I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. </p>
          
          
== Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature <ref name="term_15652" /> ==
== Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature <ref name="term_15652" /> ==
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<ref name="term_80688"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/watson-s-biblical-theological-dictionary/festus Festus from Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary]</ref>
<ref name="term_80688"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/watson-s-biblical-theological-dictionary/festus Festus from Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary]</ref>
       
<ref name="term_197264"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/whyte-s-dictionary-of-bible-characters/festus Festus from Whyte's Dictionary of Bible Characters]</ref>
          
          
<ref name="term_15652"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/kitto-s-popular-cyclopedia-of-biblial-literature/festus Festus from Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature]</ref>
<ref name="term_15652"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/kitto-s-popular-cyclopedia-of-biblial-literature/festus Festus from Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature]</ref>
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