Caesarea Maritima

Overview

• Testament: New
• Region: Judea, Mediterranean coast of modern Israel
• Key Books: Acts
• Summary: Herod the Great’s magnificent harbor city on the Mediterranean coast; the administrative capital of Roman Judea; home of Cornelius the centurion; site of Paul’s two-year imprisonment before his appeal to Caesar.

Profile

Caesarea Maritima (to distinguish it from Caesarea Philippi in the north) was the showpiece achievement of Herod the Great’s building program. Constructed over approximately twelve years beginning around 22 BC, it featured an artificial harbor (the Sebastos) created by pouring concrete into the sea — a feat of Roman engineering that made it one of the Mediterranean’s finest deep-water ports. Herod equipped it with a temple to Augustus (Caesar — hence Caesarea), a theater, an amphitheater, a hippodrome, and a system of sewers flushed by the tides. By the first century AD, Caesarea had become the official residence of the Roman governors of Judea, surpassing Jerusalem as the seat of administrative power. This is why Pontius Pilate is described in Roman sources as based at Caesarea rather than Jerusalem.

In Acts, Caesarea appears first as the home of Cornelius — a centurion of the Italian cohort, a God-fearer whose vision of an angel and subsequent conversion under Peter’s preaching marked the watershed moment of Gentile inclusion in the church (Cornelius’s Vision, Acts 10). Philip the Evangelist also settled at Caesarea (Acts 21:8), and it was in his house that the prophet Agabus bound Paul’s hands and feet with Paul’s belt and prophesied his arrest (Acts 21:10-11).

Caesarea became the setting for Paul’s long judicial ordeal after his arrest in Jerusalem. Transferred there under heavy military escort by night, Paul spent approximately two years under house arrest (Acts 24:27) while the case wound through the hands of Felix and then Festus. It was at Caesarea that Paul heard the charges before Felix, that Felix’s convenient seasons never came, that Festus proposed a Jerusalem trial and Paul appealed to Caesar, and that Agrippa II and Bernice came to hear Paul’s full autobiography and the famous near-persuasion of Acts 26 (Paul Before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa). Paul’s voyage to Rome departed from Caesarea (Acts 27:1).

Key Events

• Cornelius’s Vision — the Gentile Pentecost; Cornelius lived in Caesarea; Peter came and preached here (Acts 10)
• Paul’s Third Missionary Journey — Paul passed through Caesarea returning to Antioch (Acts 18:22) and again arriving in Jerusalem (Acts 21:8)
• Paul Arrested in Jerusalem — Paul transferred from Jerusalem to Caesarea under escort (Acts 23:23-35)
• Paul Before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa — all three hearings conducted at Caesarea (Acts 24-26)
• Paul’s Voyage and Shipwreck — voyage to Rome departs from Caesarea (Acts 27:1)

Key Verses

“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house.” — Acts 10:1-2

“And the morrow after they entered into Caesarea.” — Acts 23:33

Cross-References

• Cornelius — God-fearing centurion stationed here; his conversion opened the Gentile mission
• Felix — governor of Judea who kept Paul imprisoned here two years
• Festus — Felix’s successor; received Paul’s appeal to Caesar at Caesarea
• Agrippa — Herod Agrippa II; heard Paul’s defense at Caesarea
• Jerusalem — the city from which Paul was transferred to Caesarea for protection
• Acts — Caesarea appears in Acts 8, 10, 18, 21, 23-27