PORCIUS FESTUS. – Procurator of Judea from AD 60 to 61–62 (dates of U. Holzmeister), of whom mention is made in Acts 24:27–27:1. He is praised for his attitude and skill. Having arrived in Caesarea in the summer, after the deposition of his predecessor Antonius Felix (q.v.), he found Paul a prisoner there (Acts 24:27).
Three days later he went up to Jerusalem, where the Jewish elders asked him to transfer the accused there, hoping to succeed in killing him by an ambush along the way. P. F. invited the accusers to his tribunal in Caesarea, where they vainly multiplied accusations that they could not prove. When P. F. asked Paul whether he wished to go up to Jerusalem to be judged there by the mayor in his presence, the Apostle replied: “I stand at Caesar’s tribunal: there I must be judged... I appeal to Caesar.” After conferring with his council, P. F. answered: “You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go!” (Acts 25:10–12).
Meanwhile Agrippa II (q.v.) and Berenice (q.v.) had come to Caesarea on a visit of homage, and P. F. asked them to hear Paul, so as to obtain information for the report he was to send with the prisoner to Nero. When Paul, at the end of his defence, spoke of the resurrection of the dead, P. F. said to him kindly: “Paul, you are mad! Your many books are driving you out of your mind!” And Paul: “I am not mad, most excellent Festus, but I am uttering words of truth and wisdom!” (Acts 26:24–25). In the autumn of AD 60 P. F. entrusted Paul to the centurion Julius to be taken to Rome.
There is some discussion about the year in which P. F. began his office, an important point for the chronology of St Paul. At present most scholars agree on the year AD 60. Even G. Ricciotti, who in his Storia d’Israele (II, Turin 1934, § 414) had fixed the date at AD 62, now in Paolo Apostolo (Rome 1946, p. 146) prefers AD 60. During his brief administration, which lasted little more than a year, P. F. restored public order, which had been disturbed by bands of assassins who stabbed, plundered and set fire wherever they went. He also put down the sedition of a false messiah who was drawing crowds into the desert, and killed him together with his followers. He died in office and was succeeded by Albinus (q.v.).