Felix, ANTONIUS

Felix, ANTONIUS, or CLAUDIUS, a Roman procurator of Judæa in the time of the apostle Paul, was a freedman of the Emperor Claudius I. and was brother of his favourite Pallas. The circumstances under which he received his appointment are related differently by Tacitus and Josephus. The latter tells us that he cleared the country of robbers, and vigorously suppressed the chaotic seditions of the Jews; but his cruelty, lust, and greed were unbounded. His wife was Drusilla, a beautiful but renegade Jewess, whom he had induced to abandon her first husband. According to Tacitus, she was a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra. We read in Acts (xxiv. 25) that Felix trembled as Paul reasoned of 'righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.' He was recalled to Rome, 62 A.D., on account of the accusations preferred against him by the influential Jews of Cæsarea, and narrowly escaped the sentence of death.