Acts 25:13 – 26:32 · Caesarea · An Iconic Story
Paul before Agrippa
A prisoner who has already appealed to Caesar — so nobody in the room can free him — spends his hearing preaching to the king instead of defending himself.
Thornhill, who painted the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in London, stages the scene as the text does: a great architectural room, the king and his sister raised on a dais, the officers and the leading men of the city ranged around — and one man standing in the open floor with his arm out, mid-sentence. The whole composition is built to make the prisoner the smallest figure in the room and the only one anybody is looking at.
The Grandest Audience of His Life, and He Cannot Be Released
Acts 25:13 – 26:32, told plainly
Paul had been in custody at Caesarea for two years. When the new governor suggested sending him back to Jerusalem for trial — where men had already sworn to kill him on the road — Paul used the one right a Roman citizen had that nobody could take away.
If, however, I am guilty of anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die. But if there is no truth to their accusations against me, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!” Then Festus conferred with his council and replied, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”Everything that follows happens inside this decision. Once the appeal is lodged, no court in Judea can let him go.
Festus granted it, and then had a problem: he had to send a prisoner to the emperor and he had nothing coherent to write on the charge sheet. So when King Agrippa and his sister Bernice arrived to pay their respects, Festus laid the case out — and Agrippa said he would like to hear the man himself.
They only had some contentions with him regarding their own religion and a certain Jesus who had died, but whom Paul affirmed to be alive.A Roman governor's summary of Christianity, given to a king: a dispute about religion, and one Jesus who was dead, whom Paul kept insisting was alive.
The next day they came into the audience hall with great ceremony, with the officers and the leading men of the city, and Paul was brought in wearing a chain. He did not argue a legal case. He told them his life: raised a Pharisee, a man who had hunted Christians to death, stopped on the Damascus road at midday by a light brighter than the sun and a voice speaking to him in his own language, and sent out with a commission he had never disobeyed. He said he was on trial for the hope of a promise God made to the fathers, and asked the room why it should be thought incredible that God raises the dead.
Festus broke in, shouting that Paul had lost his mind. Paul answered him with perfect courtesy and turned straight back to the king — because the king knew these things, and because none of it had been done in a corner. Then he asked Agrippa directly whether he believed the prophets, and answered his own question: I know that you believe. And Agrippa gave the most famous half-answer in the Bible. Paul's reply was that he wished before God that everyone in the room were as he was — except for the chains. Afterwards, walking out, they agreed among themselves that this man could have been set free, if he had not appealed to Caesar.
See here, Festus altogether a heathen, Paul alogether [sic] a Christian, Agrippa halting between both.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Acts 26:28
Wesley's spelling of “altogether” the second time is his printer's, and it is kept here exactly as it stands in the source.
The Most Famous Half-Answer in the Bible
what the text actually says — starting with the line everybody quotes
King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.” Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Can you persuade me in such a short time to become a Christian?”Paul asks a direct question and answers it himself. The king's reply is two Greek words long in the part that matters — and those two words can be read two ways.
The reading of DEGREE
“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”
in a little — that is, nearly
On this reading Agrippa is answering honestly and is close to being convinced. He is a Jew who does believe the prophets; he has just heard them applied to Jesus of Nazareth by a man he cannot easily dismiss; and he says how near the argument has brought him. This is the King James rendering, and it is the way the line has been preached for four hundred years.
ἐν ὀλίγῳ
two words, and both readings are honest Greek
The reading of TIME
“In such a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”
in a little — that is, so quickly
On this reading Agrippa is deflecting, and the tone is dry: you think a speech of that length will make a Christian of me? Most modern translations render it this way. Some readers hear irony in it and some hear amusement, and the Greek supports the sense without settling the tone.
Almost - Except a very little - ἐν ὀλίγῳ en oligō. Thou hast nearly convinced me that Christianity is true, and persuaded me to embrace it.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on Acts 26:28
If he believed the prophets … and believed that Paul's application of their words to Christ Jesus was correct, he must acknowledge the truth of the Christian religion; but he might choose whether he would embrace and confess this truth, or not.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Acts 26:28
taking it in that view, the sense is, “Thou wilt soon have me one of that despised sect.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Acts 26:28
Both panels are drawn the same size on purpose. The Greek carries both senses; the older English Bibles took one and most modern ones take the other — which is why the verse above, in the translation this site reads by default, sounds nothing like the line you have heard preached. The text gives no tone of voice. This page sets the two readings side by side and leaves the choice with the reader, which is more or less what the next verse does too.
“Short time or long,” Paul replied, “I wish to God that not only you but all who hear me this day may become what I am, except for these chains.”Paul picks up the king's own word — little — and answers both readings at once: little or much, quickly or nearly, I would have every one of you where I am. Except the chains.
NOBODY IN THE ROOM COULD FREE HIM
The appeal to Caesar had already been lodged, and it was irreversible. That makes this hearing something other than a trial: no verdict is available to anyone present. The last verse of the chapter says it out loud. Paul is not defending himself — he is preaching to a king who has no power over him.
HIS DEFENCE IS HIS TESTIMONY
Asked to answer a charge, Paul tells the story of the Damascus road — the third time Acts recounts it, and the fullest. This is the only telling that includes the goads and the whole commission. It is also the only one aimed at a king.
FESTUS AND PAUL TRADE ONE WORD EACH
Festus shouts a word for madness; Paul answers with the word for soundness of mind. It is a matched pair in Greek, and it is the reason the reply reads as calm rather than defensive. He does not deny the emotion in the room — he denies the diagnosis.
“CHRISTIAN” IS A RARE WORD HERE
It appears three times in the whole New Testament — at Antioch where it was coined, on Agrippa's lips here, and once in Peter's first letter. At this date it was still most likely a label given by outsiders rather than a name believers had chosen for themselves.
THE ROOM WAS CHOSEN TO CHECK HIM
Paul says this thing was not done in a corner, and he says it to the tribunes and the principal men of Caesarea — the people best placed to know whether a movement had swept the province under their noses. It is an appeal to a public record in front of the record-keepers.
HE ADDRESSES THE EXPERT, NOT THE JUDGE
Paul opens by telling Agrippa he is glad to answer before him, because the king knows the customs and questions among the Jews. That is not flattery; it is accurate, and it is the reason Festus wanted him in the room in the first place.
The Last of the Herods, and a Governor Ten Days Into the Job
who these people actually were, and why the hearing happened at all
Agrippa II was the great-grandson of Herod the Great and the son of the Agrippa who died in Acts 12. He was never king of Judea proper — Rome gave him territories to the north — but Rome did give him two things that mattered enormously here: custody of the high priest's vestments and the right to appoint the high priest himself (Josephus, Antiquities20.222). That is exactly why Festus wanted his opinion. Agrippa was Rome's resident expert on Jewish religious questions, and Paul says so in his opening sentence.
“King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today to defend myself against all the accusations of the Jews, especially since you are acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. I beg you, therefore, to listen to me patiently.Paul is not buttering up a king. He is telling the room why this particular listener can follow the argument he is about to make.
Bernice was Agrippa's sister, widow of Herod of Chalcis, and later well known in Rome for her attachment to the future emperor Titus (Tacitus, Histories 2.2; Suetonius, Titus7). Josephus records that gossip attached to the siblings' household in Judea (Antiquities20.145–146). She is in the room for two chapters. That is what the sources say about her, and this page's business is what Paul said, not what Caesarea whispered.
The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the auditorium, along with the commanders and leading men of the city. And Festus ordered that Paul be brought in.Luke spends a whole verse on the ceremony — the robes, the hall, the officers — and then walks a prisoner into the middle of it.
Festus, for his part, had been in the province a matter of days when this two-year-old case landed on him. He was not being cruel; he was being administratively stuck. A man had appealed to the emperor, and Roman practice required the governor to send a statement of the charges with him — and Festus had no charge he could write down without embarrassing himself. He says so in front of everybody.
I have nothing definite to write to our sovereign one about him. Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after this inquiry I may have something to write. For it seems unreasonable to me to send on a prisoner without specifying the charges against him.”The whole hearing exists because a Roman official needed help writing a paragraph.
What kind of room was this?
Caesarea was the Roman capital of the province, a harbour city built by Herod the Great, and the audience hall would have held the garrison's senior officers and the civic elite of the city. The word Luke chooses for the entrance of the king and his sister is a display word — pageantry, the show of it — and he sets it directly against a man in a chain. He never comments on the contrast. He does not have to.
Was Paul on trial?
No charge was being tried and no verdict was available. The appeal to Caesar had already moved the case out of Judea, and the closing verse of the chapter says plainly that Paul could have been released if he had not appealed. So what looks like the climax of a legal drama is something stranger and better: a hearing with no legal purpose at all, arranged so that a governor could draft a letter — and used by the prisoner to preach to the most powerful audience of his life.
Festus said in a loud voice: You are insane, Paul. He deemed it insanity that a man in chains, instead of just defending himself from external accusations, made a speech about the conscience by which he gloried inside.
Bede· Commentary on Acts (735), on Acts 26:24
What the Text Refuses to Tell
four silences — and the biggest sermons have been preached into all four
This chapter has been used for two centuries as a warning about the man who came close and stopped. That sermon may be right. What matters here is that the text does not supply its ending, and this page will not supply one either.
We are not told what Agrippa thought
Scripture gives the king exactly two lines in this scene: the famous reply, and the verdict he offers Festus in the corridor — this man could have been set free. Nothing about later regret, nothing about a deathbed, nothing about what he did with the afternoon. Preaching has built a great deal on the silence, and the silence is all the text has.
We are not told what Bernice said
She arrives with her brother, she enters the hall with him, and she leaves with him. Luke names her three times and records not one word from her.
We are not told what Festus finally wrote
The governor says he has nothing certain to send to the emperor, holds a hearing to find something, and then the narrative moves to a ship. Whatever ended up on that document, Luke never tells us.
We are not told how the appeal turned out
The book closes with Paul in Rome, in his own rented house, preaching to whoever came — and stops there. A trial, a release, a later journey west, a second imprisonment: every one of those is an inference from his letters or from later church tradition, not from Acts. They are worth reading and they should be labelled for what they are.
The Defence Is the Gospel
a blind man's commission was about sight, and a public event has a public record
‘But get up and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen from Me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.’The commission in full — and it is a commission about eyes, given to a man who had just been struck blind.
So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.The sentence his whole life since that road hangs on, said in front of a king who could have made obedience expensive.
And now I stand on trial because of my hope in the promise that God made to our fathers, the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to realize as they earnestly serve God day and night. It is because of this hope, O king, that I am accused by the Jews. Why would any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?Paul reframes the charge: he is on trial for a hope Israel has always held — and asks why raising the dead should be the incredible part.
But I have had God’s help to this day, and I stand here to testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen: that the Christ would suffer, and as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles.”The whole case in one sentence: the Christ would suffer, would be first to rise, and would bring light to Israel and to the nations.
For the king knows about these matters, and I can speak freely to him. I am confident that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.Not a private religious experience — a public event, in a province the king governed, with witnesses who could be asked.
“For this thing,” he says, “was not done in a corner.” Here he speaks of the Cross, of the Resurrection: that the doctrine was come to every part of the world.
John Chrysostom· Homily on Acts 52 (407)
That is the hinge of the whole speech and the reason it belongs on a page about evidence. Paul does not ask the king to accept a feeling. He points at a crucifixion outside a city wall, an empty tomb, and a movement that had grown up under Roman noses in the very territory Agrippa administered, and says: you know these things happened. The claim is checkable, and he is making it to the man best placed to check it.
THE ARTWORK
Bloemaert throws away the crowd and the architecture and paints only two men, close together, at the moment of the question. The king is turned toward the prisoner and the prisoner is still talking. It is the opposite decision from Thornhill's great hall, and it isolates what Luke actually records: a conversation between two people, with a room listening.
Hendrick Bloemaert, Paul and King Agrippa (17th century), Centraal Museum, Utrecht. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
And then there is verse 29, which is the sentence to take away from the chapter. A man in a chain, standing in front of a king, a governor, a princess and the officers of a Roman garrison, tells them he wishes every one of them were where he is — and then remembers the chain, and says: except for these.
An Answer Given on the Spur of the Moment
the old readers on Festus's insult and Paul's reply
At this stage of Paul’s defense, Festus exclaimed in a loud voice, “You are insane, Paul! Your great learning is driving you to madness!”The governor cannot follow the argument and reaches for the one explanation available to him.
But Paul answered, “I am not insane, most excellent Festus; I am speaking words of truth and sobriety.No indignation, no sarcasm, and the governor's proper title kept intact — followed by a flat denial of the charge.
The two words, and why the answer lands
Festus uses a word for derangement; Paul answers with its exact opposite, the word for a sound and governed mind. In Greek the two sit against each other perfectly, which is why the reply reads as composure rather than protest.
The σωφροσυνη of the apostle was elegantly opposed to the μανια of the governor: the one signifying mental derangement, the other mental sanity. Never was an answer, on the spur of the moment, more happily conceived.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Acts 26:25
The courtesy is part of the argument
Paul keeps the governor's formal style of address even while contradicting him in front of a king. Wesley, who spent a working life speaking to hostile rooms, could not get over it.
I am not mad, most excellent Festus - The style properly belonging to a Roman propretor. How inexpressibly beautiful is this reply! How strong! yet how decent and respectful!
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Acts 26:25
Where the three tellings of the Damascus road are compared
Acts tells the story of Paul's conversion three times, and this chapter is the third and fullest. The differences between the accounts — who heard what, who stood and who fell, how much of the commission is given on the road and how much at Damascus — are set out line by line on their own page.
Go to the Damascus road for the three accounts side by side.
Read the Great Books
the works that have carried this teaching — go further than this page
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament
Albert Barnes · 1832–1869
Barnes is unusually careful with Acts 26:28 — he prints the Greek, gives the sense he takes, and lays out what Agrippa did and did not concede. His pages on this verse are quoted above.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament
John Wesley · 1755
Short, fast and quotable. Wesley's single line on the three men in the room — a heathen, a Christian, and a king between them — has outlived most of the sermons preached from it.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · 1871
The one-volume Victorian standard, and one of the clearest statements of the second reading of Agrippa's reply — that the king was deflecting rather than yielding.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →The Antiquities of the Jews
Flavius Josephus · c. AD 93
Almost everything known about Agrippa II and Bernice outside the New Testament comes from here — including the temple prerogatives that explain why a Roman governor wanted this particular king in the room.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Except for These Chains
On their way out, they said to one another, “This man has done nothing worthy of death or imprisonment.” And Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar.”The room's own verdict, delivered on the way out — and it changes nothing, because the appeal has already been made.
He walks out still a prisoner, and the appeal that costs him his freedom is the thing that puts him on a ship to Rome. The hearing decided nothing legally and everything otherwise: a governor got his letter, a king got his answer, and a room full of the most powerful people in the province heard a man explain, calmly and in order, why he believed a crucified Jew was alive. He was not asking them for anything. He told them he wanted them to have what he had — and the only thing he did not wish on them was the iron on his own wrist.
GO ON FROM HERE
Built from MannaFest's research brief on the Acts stories and the gate-verified Acts 25–26 quote pool — public-domain commentary quoted verbatim (Albert Barnes, Adam Clarke, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, John Wesley, John Chrysostom, Bede). Greek word data floor-verified against the site's word-level text of Acts 26. Scripture BSB, fetched from the floor. Agrippa II's authority over the temple and the high priesthood per Josephus, Antiquities 20.222, and the household detail at 20.145–146; Bernice's later life per Tacitus, Histories 2.2, and Suetonius, Titus 7 — all cited. Artwork: James Thornhill (c. 1720s) and Hendrick Bloemaert (17th century), both public domain, license-verified at Wikimedia Commons.