and he even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him.
Tertullus brought a frivolous charge before a pagan governor who cared nothing for the temple, but he knew that desecration would stir Jerusalem to riot. He craftily implies Paul lit a fuse that others prevented from exploding, and by framing this as a religious matter, he hints that Rome should restore to the Jews what Lysias took from them, the power to judge. Yet he dares not say openly what he truly wants: Paul's death.
AI summary
Mark how swiftly malice moves: within five days these men abandon all other business to pursue Paul. Ananias himself, the high priest who sat to judge him, now comes down to inform against him, stripping himself of dignity and laying bare his enmity for all to see. When a man of his rank will not play least in sight but openly declares himself Paul's sworn enemy, you see how God makes the priests contemptible when they make themselves so.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 24:1-9
The charge that Paul profaned the temple by bringing Greeks inside was mere supposition and falsehood, the Asiatic Jews' own conjecture, not fact. And Tertullus lies again when he claims they would have judged him according to law. They brought no formal charges, heard nothing from Paul, and would have killed him outright had not the chief captain's soldiers intervened. That is not law; that is murder.
AI summary