Five-minute study · Day 278 · Acts 24
Acts 24:25
A word worth stopping on: temperance ἐγκράτεια enkrateia
'And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.' The word translated 'temperance' is enkrateia. Self-control. It was a cardinal virtue in Greco-Roman philosophy. The Stoics considered enkrateia the mastery of desire, the disciplined governance of appetite and impulse. Paul used Felix's own cultural vocabulary to confront him. Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, was notorious for corruption. Tacitus wrote that Felix 'practised every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of a king with the instincts of a slave' (Histories 5.9). Felix had seduced Drusilla away from her husband, King Azizus of Emesa. Paul sat across from a man who embodied the opposite of enkrateia and preached self-control to his face. Felix trembled.
Word study: temperance
- Greek
- ἐγκράτεια
- Pronounced
- enkrateia
- Strong's
- G1466
- Definition
- Self-control, self-mastery, temperance. From en (in) and kratos (strength, power, dominion). Literally, having power over oneself. The ability to govern one's own desires, appetites, and impulses. A cardinal virtue in Stoic ethics.
Enkrateia appears 4 times in the New Testament (Acts 24:25; Galatians 5:23; 2 Peter 1:6 twice). BDAG defines it as 'restraint of one's emotions, impulses, or desires, self-control.' The word comes from enkrates (having power over, strong), which combines en (in) and kratos (strength, dominion). An enkrates person has internal dominion. They rule themselves.
Keener's commentary on Acts provides the cultural and biographical context that makes Paul's word choice devastating. Antonius Felix was a freedman (a former slave who had gained his freedom) who rose to the position of procurator of Judea, serving approximately AD 52-59. Tacitus and Josephus both record his administration as marked by brutality and self-enrichment. Tacitus's assessment is famous: Felix exercised royal power with a slave's character (Histories 5.9). Suetonius notes that Felix was the brother of Pallas, the powerful freedman secretary of Emperor Claudius, and owed his appointment to that connection (Claudius 28).
Felix's marriage to Drusilla is central to the scene. Drusilla was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I and the sister of Agrippa II. She had been married to King Azizus of Emesa (modern Homs, Syria), who had undergone circumcision to marry her. Felix, attracted to Drusilla, enlisted a Cyprian magician named Atomos (or Simon, per some manuscripts of Josephus) to persuade her to leave Azizus and marry him (Josephus, Antiquities 20.7.2). Drusilla was approximately sixteen at the time. Felix was her second husband. She was present during Paul's hearing (Acts 24:24).
Paul's three topics, righteousness (dikaiosyne), self-control (enkrateia), and the coming judgment (krima to mellon), were precisely calibrated. Dikaiosyne confronted Felix's corruption as a judge. Enkrateia confronted his uncontrolled appetites, including the seduction of Drusilla. The coming judgment confronted his assumption that power insulated him from accountability. Keener notes that enkrateia was a virtue Felix would have recognized from his Greco-Roman education. Paul did not introduce a foreign concept. He used a word Felix already knew and aimed it at the life Felix was living. The trembling (emphobos genomenos, becoming terrified) suggests the words hit their mark. Felix's response was to postpone: 'when I have a convenient season.' The convenient season never came. Felix was recalled to Rome in disgrace. He left Paul in prison as a political favor to the Jewish leaders (Acts 24:27).
Historical context · Antonius Felix serving as procurator of Judea approximately AD 52-59; Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea approximately AD 57-59; the Herodian dynasty in its final generations; Drusilla approximately born AD 38
Felix, Drusilla, and the Procuratorship of Judea
Antonius Felix governed Judea during one of the most volatile periods in the province's history. The decades leading up to the Jewish revolt of AD 66-70 were marked by escalating tensions between the Jewish population and Roman administrators. Josephus records multiple incidents under Felix's administration: the assassination of the high priest Jonathan by sicarii (dagger-men) whom Felix allegedly hired (Antiquities 20.8.5), the suppression of an Egyptian false prophet who led thousands to the Mount of Olives (War 2.13.5, referenced in Acts 21:38), and repeated clashes between Jewish and Greek populations in Caesarea over civic rights.
Caesarea Maritima, where Paul stood before Felix, was the Roman administrative capital of Judea. Built by Herod the Great between approximately 22 and 10 BCE, the city was a showcase of Roman engineering: an artificial harbor (Sebastos), a hippodrome, a theater, aqueducts, and a governor's palace (the praetorium). Excavations at Caesarea by Robert Bull, Lee Levine, and others have uncovered the praetorium complex where Paul's hearing likely took place. A Latin inscription found in the theater in 1961 bears the name 'Pontius Pilatus,' confirming Caesarea's role as the seat of Roman authority in Judea.
Drusilla's presence at the hearing (Acts 24:24) adds a personal dimension. She was the great-granddaughter of Herod the Great, the daughter of Agrippa I (who killed the apostle James in Acts 12:2), and the sister of Agrippa II (who would hear Paul in Acts 26). She was Jewish by birth and Roman by marriage. Keener notes that Drusilla would have been approximately twenty years old during Paul's hearing. Josephus records that Drusilla and a son she had with Felix died in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 (Antiquities 20.7.2, though some scholars question the reliability of this detail).
Paul's two-year imprisonment in Caesarea (Acts 24:27) was a political calculation. Felix, facing mounting complaints about his administration, left Paul in prison as a favor to the Jewish leadership. When Porcius Festus replaced Felix, Paul was still in chains. The 'convenient season' Felix promised never materialized. Keener observes that Felix's response is one of the most psychologically realistic moments in Acts: a man confronted with truth about his own life who postpones the reckoning indefinitely.
For reflection
Enkrateia. Self-control. The Stoics prized it as the foundation of a well-governed life. Paul preached it to a man who had seduced another man's wife, governed by cruelty, and made every decision to serve his own appetites. The word was from Felix's own cultural education. He knew what it meant. He trembled because he recognized the gap between the virtue he had been taught and the life he was living. Then he said, 'Go away. I will call for you when it is convenient.' Convenience never came. He was recalled to Rome in disgrace. He left Paul in chains as a political favor. Where in your life are you postponing a reckoning you already know is coming? The convenient season is a door that stays closed because you keep pushing the appointment forward.
Enkrateia: self-control, self-mastery. From en (in) + kratos (strength). A Stoic cardinal virtue. Keener notes Paul's three topics (righteousness, self-control, judgment) were precisely targeted at Felix's known corruption, his seduction of Drusilla, and his presumption of immunity.
Sources: BDAG; Keener, 'Acts'