ANTONIO FELIX. – Procurator of Judea from 2 to 6 A.D. A freedman emancipated by Antonia, CLAUDIUS, MATTHIAS (v.). Supported at court by his brother Pallas and favoured by Agrippina, he was appointed governor of Samaria, and then in 52, at the request of the high priest Jonathan, procurator of Judea.
He exercised regal authority with the spirit of a slave, resorting to every act of lust (Tacitus, Hist., 5, 9). He successively married three princesses. Suetonius called him “husband of three kingdoms” (Claud., 28). The first was Drusilla, daughter of the triumvir Antony and Cleopatra; the third was another Drusilla, a Jewess, previously wife of Aziz of Emesa, whom he compelled to divorce. Under his misrule the Zealots or Sicarii grew stronger, though he persecuted them, and even used them to kill the high priest Jonathan; he was removed by Nero in 6 and replaced by Festus. Cf. Flavius Josephus, Ant. Jud., XX, 8; Bell. Jud., II, 13.
To his tribunal at Caesarea Paul the Apostle was sent in 58, having been arrested in Jerusalem by the tribune Lysias (Acts 23, 25-35). The Apostle defended himself against the high priest Ananias (v.) and the advocate Tertullus so terrified Felix that “his wife Drusilla, though discussing justice, continence and the future judgment” (Acts 24, 25). Hoping for a bribe, Felix kept him imprisoned in the praetorium at Caesarea until the arrival of Festus (Acts 23, 35–24, 27).