The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 254

Ver. 19.-Spiritual tlepri,'V<l,ticn. The translation which gives us the word" super- stition " in this verse of our English Version, cannot be accepted as conveying the meaning of l<'estus. He would not have spoken of that which was, at all events nominally, the religion of Agrippa, as a "superstition." We may safely adopt the ordinary word "religion "-a word, even from the Jews' point of view, little enough appreciated by a Roman official-as found in the Revised Version. Great as was the practical injustice in some directions of Festus, for instance, in keeping Paul in prison; yet we cannot fail to note a certain truthfulness of his lip. He bas already spoken sufficiently the acquittal of his prisoner. This he does again, privately, in conversation with Agrippa; and yet again to-morrow, ".rithout disgui~e, in the publicity of the open court. To that same lip it was also given to utter, at all events, the central truth about Jesus in his relation to men, however little he believed or understood it. We may notice here- L THE WIDE DISTANCE TH.AT BEPARATEB THE llliN WBO HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OP ltEVELATION FBOll BTll WBO IUB SOllE SUCH KNOWLEDGE. Presumably, Festus had not the slightest inclination to speak slightingly to Agrippa of the religion of the Jews of Jerusalem. But nevertheless his tone is that of a man who speaks of what is utt.erly unintelligible to him. A Roman's worship was a strange thing ; his religion a strange product under any circumstances-perhaps in nothing so strange as in thir disabling quality of them. But the phenomenon, after all, is most typical. It is typical of all those in their measure, i.e. the measure of their time and place in the whole world's history, who are without true revelation. It shows these in the twofold aspect, and apparently contradictory aspects, of believing far too much and far too little. 1. They believe far too much; for they are sure to construct their own superhuman and supernatural They will have their own pantheon in some sort. 2. And they believe far too little ; for the verities of the true revelation of the superhuman and super- natural they are most averse to receive. Be the account of this what it may, it is but the expression of the thing of perpetual recurrence. The domain so wide, so dreary, of superstition lies where ignorance of true revelation is the appointed signal for men to make the materials of revelation unreal and incongruous for themselves. "Pro- f886ing themselves to be wise, they become fools," not less in what they accept than in what they reject. What a world of thought and feeling, of meaning and of truth, was shut off from Festus, as his present language betrays him I And what a world of thought and feeling, of meaning and of truth, is shut off from any man and every man who is destitnte of trne revelation ! If it have not yet travelled to him, it is at present his myst.erious lot. If it have, and he reject it, it is his undeniable folly and guilt. Religion and superstition are not differenced by one not introducing the supernatural, while the other does introduce it. They both introduce it, and they both earnestly believe in it. They are differenced in that the one acquaints with what things are real and which it concerns us to know, beyond the ken of mortal eye or reason; but the other offers us imaginations, perhaps in every grotesquest form, for truth and stones for bread. lL BBIEPLY EXPRESSED, THE VITAL PACT OF ALL CHRISTIAN TBUTB, 01' ALL CHl!.IBTIAN FAITR, OF ALL CmlIBTIAN IllPULSE. "One Jesus, who was dead and whom," now nc longer Paul alone, bnt a vast portion of the world, " affirms to be alive." It were past all his merit that it should be given to the lip of Festus to utter these words, the oharter of our faith and hope and religion, t~t d,ay, ~nd to have them recorded a, OIi, XXV. 1-27.] THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.