The word paraginomai (`came') may indicate that Felix had been away and had now returned. His wife,

Drusilla, was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, whose end is described in Acts 12:19-23, and the sister of Herod

Agrippa II, mentioned in Acts 25 and 26. Drusilla was originally married to Azizus, the king of Emesa, but this

marriage was soon dissolved, as recorded by Josephus:

`While Felix was procurator of Judæa, he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; for she did indeed exceed

all other women in beauty; and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon, one of his friends; a Jew he was,

and by birth a Cypriot, and one who pretended to be a magician; and endeavoured to persuade her to forsake her

present husband, and marry him; and promised, that if she would not refuse him, he would make her a happy

woman. Accordingly she acted ill, and because she was desirous to avoid her sister Bernice's envy, for she was

very ill-treated by her on account of her beauty, was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and

to marry Felix; and when he had had a son by her, he named him Agrippa. But after what manner that young

man, with his wife, perished at the conflagration of the mountain Vesuvius, in the days of Titus Cæsar, shall be

related hereafter' (Ant. of Jews, xx. 7, 2).

Wordsworth comments here:

`St. Paul was tried on a charge of breaking the Law at the instance of the Jews, before a ruler who had set those

laws at defiance, and who yet is flattered by them' (3-9).

From Drusilla, Felix had probably heard of the Messianic hope of Israel, and of the new `heresy' that claimed

that Jesus was the Christ. And so we read that Felix `sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ'.

The expression here: tes eis Christon pisteos (`The unto Christ faith') is a striking one. According to the revised

texts the name `Jesus' should also be added.

We have no means of knowing the length of time occupied by the apostle, or the line of approach he adopted.

He may have appealed to the Old Testament Scriptures for the benefit of Drusilla, or he may have approached his

subject along the lines of Acts 17. The veil, however, is lifted for a moment in verse 25, and we read that `as he

reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled' (Acts 24:25).

The word dialogismos (`reasoning') is used in an evil sense in the New Testament and is forbidden by the

apostle himself in several places (Rom. 1:21; 14:1; 1 Cor. 3:20; Phil. 2:14; 1 Tim. 2:8). We must be careful,

however, not to jump to false conclusions. `Reasonings', dialogismoi (plural), are repudiated by the apostle in five

passages in his epistles, but `reasoning' (dialegomai) is actually used of him ten times in the Acts and is twice

translated `preaching' (Acts 20:7,9). The last occurrence of dialegomai in the Acts is this reference in chapter 24,

where Paul `reasons of righteousness, continence, and judgment to come'.

The man who listened to this `preaching' of the `faith unto Christ Jesus' was a Roman libertine, and the woman a

profligate Jewish princess. Farrar says of Felix:

`He had been a slave, in the vilest of all positions, and the vilest of all epochs, in the vilest of all cities ... Ample

and indisputable testimony, Jewish and pagan, sacred and secular, reveals to us what he had been'.

It was to this man that the apostle spoke of a judgment-seat, where there is no respect of persons, and where the

Judge Himself knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. In verse 25 we read that `Felix trembled', but the

`convenient season' never materialised, and the evil past held him in its grip. He `communed' with the apostle on

several occasions after this, but, finally, upon his recall to Rome, he violated the law in the endeavour to placate the

Jews, and left Paul bound.

We must now take up the narrative at the beginning of chapter 25.