While he answered - See this answer more at length in Acts 24:10-21. As the accusations against him were the same now as then, he made to them the same reply.

While he answered for himself - In this instance St. Luke gives only a general account, both of the accusations and of St. Paul's defense. But, from the words in this verse, the charges appear to have been threefold:
1. That he had broken the law.
2. That he had defiled the temple.
3. That he dealt in treasonable practices: to all of which he no doubt answered particularly; though we have nothing farther here than this, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all.

While he answered for himself,.... As he was allowed by the Roman laws to do, he pleaded his own cause, and showed the falsehood of the charges exhibited against him; by observing, that as the crimes alleged against him were reducible to three heads, neither of them were just and true:
neither against the law of the Jews; the law of Moses, whether moral, ceremonial, or judicial; not the moral law, that he was a strict observer of, both before and since his conversion; nor the ceremonial law, for though it was abolished, and he knew it was, yet for peace sake, and in condescension to the weakness of some, and in order to gain others, he submitted to it, and was performing a branch of it, when he was seized in the temple; nor the judicial law, which concerned the Jews as Jews, and their civil affairs: neither against the temple; at Jerusalem, the profanation of which he was charged with, by bringing a Gentile into it; which was a falsehood, at least a mistake:
nor yet against Caesar, have I offended at all; for he was charged with sedition, Acts 24:5. Caesar was a common name to the Roman emperors, as Pharaoh was to the kings of Egypt; and which they took from Julius Caesar the first of them, who was succeeded by Augustus Caesar, under whom Christ was born; and he by Tiberius, under whom he suffered; the fourth was Caius Caligula; the fifth was Claudius, mentioned in Acts 11:28 and the present Caesar, to whom Paul now appealed, was Nero; and though succeeding emperors bore this name, it was also given to the second in the empire, or the presumptive heir to it: authors are divided about the original of Caesar, the surname of Julius; some say he had it from the colour of his eyes, which were "Caesii", grey; others from "Caesaries", his fine head of hair; others from his killing of an elephant, which, in the language of the Moors, is called "Caesar": the more common opinion is, that he took his name from his mother's womb, being "Caeso", cut up at his birth, to make way for his passage into the world; in which manner also our King Edward the Sixth came into the world.

While he answered - To a general charge a general answer was sufficient.