other · 59 · Caesarea Maritima
Agrippa and his sister Bernice came down to Caesarea to greet the new governor, and stayed several days; Festus laid Paul's case before him, admitting that the accusation turned out to be about points of dispute concerning their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus whom Paul asserted to be alive. Agrippa said he would like to hear the man himself. They came the next day with great pomp, into the audience hall with the military tribunes and the prominent men of the city. Paul told it a third time — Jerusalem, the authority from the chief priests, the light brighter than the sun at midday, the voice in Hebrew, the commission to open eyes and turn people from darkness to light. Festus interrupted him shouting that his great learning was driving him out of his mind; Paul answered that the king knew about these things, for none of it had been done in a corner. Agrippa said the sentence that has been argued over ever since, and afterwards told Festus privately that the man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.
To furnish Festus with a charge he could send to Rome, since it seemed unreasonable to him to send a prisoner without indicating the charges against him.
Nothing worth death or chains, and a case that could have ended there had the appeal not already been made.