and as, after that, some time must have elapsed before the case could be decided at Rome, Festus may have received his appointment in the year 60 or 61. The best recent authorities, as Winer, Anger, De Wette, Meyer, Wieseler, adopt one or the other of these years.
We reach very nearly the same result from what Josephus says of his journey to Rome in behalf of the Jewish priests whom Felix had sent thither for trial before his removal from office. He informs us in his Life (3), that he made this journey in the twenty-sixth year of his age, and as he was born in the first year of the reign of Caligula, i. e. A. D. 37 (Life, § 1), he visited Rome on this occasion about 63. His narrative, without being definite, implies that Felix, at this time, had not only been recalled, but must have left Palestine two or three years earlier than this. Festus was the immediate successor of Felix.
It is the more important to settle as nearly as possible some epoch in this portion of the apostle's history, since there would be otherwise so much uncertainty as to the mode of arranging the events in the long interval between this and Paul's third journey to Jerusalem. Upon this date depends the year of the apostle's arrest in that city on his fifth and last visit thither before he was sent to Rome. His captivity at Cæsarea, which followed that arrest, continued two years, and must have commenced in the spring of A. D. 58 or 59.
5. The Arrival of Paul in Rome.
The extreme limit beyond which we cannot place this event may be regarded as certain. It could not have been later than the year 62; for after 64, when the Christians at Rome began to be persecuted by the Roman government, their situation was such that the apostle could not have remained there and preached the gospel for two years without molestation, as stated by Luke at the end of the Acts. It is impossible to obtain a more definite result than this from secular history. But the date in question follows as a deduction from the one considered in the last paragraph. It is evident from the Acts, that Paul proceeded to Rome almost immediately after the entrance of Festus on his office; and if this took place in 60 or 61, he must have arrived in Rome early in the spring of A. D.
* Whether this result is confirmed by τ σтратоñeдápxn in 28, 16, depends on the explanation of the article; see the Note on that passage.