Antonius Felix

Antonius Felix (possibly Tiberius Claudius Antonius Felix, in Greek: ὁ Φῆλιξ; born ) was the 4th Roman procurator of Judea Province in 52–60, in succession to Ventidius Cumanus. He appears in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, chapters 23 and 24, where the Apostle Paul is brought before him for a trial. Life Felix was the younger brother of the Greek freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas. Pallas served as a secretary of the treasury during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. Felix was a Greek freedman – either of Claudius, according to which theory Josephus (Antiq. xx. 7) calls him Claudius Felix, or of Claudius's mother, Antonia Minor, a daughter of Triumvir Mark Antony to Octavia Minor and niece of Emperor Augustus. According to Tacitus, Pallas and Felix descended from the Greek Kings of Arcadia. Procurator of Judaea Felix became the procurator by the petition of his brother. Felix's cruelty, coupled with his accessibility to bribes (see Book of Acts ), led to a great increase of crime in Judaea. The period of his rule was marked by internal feuds and disturbances, which he put down with severity. In 58, Felix hired assassins to murder Jonathan, the High Priest, shortly after the latter took office. Jonathan had often criticized Felix about governing the Jewish affairs, and threatened to report to Caesar if Felix did not do well because Jonathan was the one who made recommendation to Caesar to send Felix to be the procurator of Judea. Felix persuaded one of Jonathan's most trusted friends, Doras, a citizen of Jerusalem, to hire robbers to kill Jonathan by promising to give him a large sum of money. Doras arranged for some hired men to mingle with the worshippers in the Temple in Jerusalem, while they hid daggers under their garments. These assassins succeeded in killing Jonathan during a Jewish festival and were never caught.