Marcus Antonius Felix

Marcus Antonius Felix was a Roman knight and procurator of Judea from 52 to 60 AD .

Life

Felix, like his brother Pallas , who was one of the most influential freedmen at the court of Emperor Claudius , was originally a freedman of the Antonia minor .

Tacitus gives the impression that Felix was governor in Samaria before the year 52 . After serious disputes between Jews and Samaritans , both he and the procurator of Judea and Galilee Ventidius Cumanus had to answer to the governor of Syria Gaius Ummidius Durmius Quadratus , with Cumanus being replaced and Felix also being given the power of procuration for Judea. Research today assumes that Felix previously held a command of auxiliaries and served as a troop leader in Judea and Samaria under Cumanus, before being appointed procurator of Judea, Galilee, Samaria and Perea as his successor.

Tacitus describes Felix's regiment as extremely despotic. In his day there appeared in Judea a false prophet who was called "the Egyptian". This Egyptian Jew went to the Mount of Olives with a large crowd in order to defeat the Romans in an end-time war of God and to wrest the holy city of Jerusalem from them. Felix, however, inflicted a crushing defeat on the false prophet. He also suppressed messianic insurrection movements with a hard hand and, according to rumors spread by Josephus , was connected with the murder of the Sicarii of the high priest Jonathan in 56. The frequent escalation of unrest between different population groups in Caesarea and the brutal suppression of Jewish protests by the Roman occupation are characteristic both of the increasing general dissatisfaction in the run-up to the Jewish War and of Felix's ruthless style of government.

The biblical narrative reports in Acts chapter 24 that Felix had the apostle Paul accused in Caesarea and put into protective custody for two years. He is said to have visited Paul several times in prison and was interested in his teaching, but for selfish motives, as he is said to have hoped to receive bribes from Paul for a release. When he was recalled, Felix left the prisoner in prison "because he wanted to do the Jews a favor" ( Acts 24:27). Presumably he wanted to avert complaints from the Jewish authorities about his term of office with the emperor, which he, whose career under the new political conditions in Rome (the rope party of the freedmen had lost their political influence with the murder of Emperor Claudius and the assumption of office by Nero ) seemed to have ended anyway, could be dangerous.

Felix was married to three royal daughters, including Drusilla , a daughter of Herod Agrippa I, and Iulia Drusilla, a granddaughter of Antonius and Cleopatra .

See also

• List of Roman governors in Judea

swell

• Flavius ​​Josephus : De bello Iudaico , Greek / German, ed. and with an introduction and annotations by Otto Michel and Otto Bauernfeind, 3 vol., 1959–1969, vol. 1, pp. 231–235 (= Book II 247–270).
• Acts 24 EU

literature

• Werner Eck : Antonius II, 6. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 1, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01471-1 , Sp. 814.
• Klaus Bringmann : History of the Jews in Antiquity. From the Babylonian exile to the Arab conquest. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-608-94138-X , pp. 241-245.
• Paul von Rohden : Antonius 54 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2616-2618.
• Ute Schall : The Jews in the Roman Empire. Regensburg 2002, ISBN 3-7917-1786-3 , p. 198 f. and p. 355.

Remarks

1. ↑ However, an inscription ( L'Année épigraphique 1967, 525) that mentions a procurator Ti. Claudius --- was related to him, so that he would have been a freedman of Claudius, which, however, is doubted in research, see the evidence in the PIR database ( [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ).  
2. ↑ Referred to by: Rainer Metzner: The celebrities in the New Testament. A prosopographic commentary. Göttingen 2008, p. 498 (note 755).
3. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus , Jewish War II 247.
4. ^ Tacitus, Historien 5.9.
5. ↑ Josephus speaks in Jewish War II 262f. of 30,000 "victims of his deception". In Acts 21.38, however, is of "4000 sicarii" the speech that introduced the "Egyptians" in the desert (and then on the Mount of Olives). For the episode cf. overall: Rainer Metzner: The celebrities in the New Testament. A prosopographic commentary. Göttingen 2008, pp. 482-487.
6. ↑ In Jüdische Antiquities XX 169ff. Josephus speaks of 4,000 dead and 200 prisoners after Felix's troops fell on the Mount of Olives. As both Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles report, the ringleader escaped. When Paul was arrested in Jerusalem after a quarrel with religious opponents, the soldiers initially mistook him for the "Egyptian" and therefore arrested him. Cf. Reinhold Mayer, Inken Rühle: Was Jesus the Messiah? History of the Messiahs of Israel in three millennia. Tübingen 1998. pp. 52 and 258f. Gerd Theißen: The historical Jesus. A textbook. 4th edition, Göttingen 2011. p. 142.
7. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus, Jüdische Altertümer XX 162ff. In the earlier depiction of Josephus ( Jewish War II 256), however, Felix is ​​not associated with the murder.
8. ^ Rainer Metzner: The celebrities in the New Testament. A prosopographic commentary. Göttingen 2008, p. 507.
9. ^ Suetonius : Claudius 28.