The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as “careless Gallio,” or to apply the expression that “he cared for none of these things,” to indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of the narrative.  What really happened was this.  The Jews, indignant at the success of Paul’s preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship.  When the Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short by saying to the Jews, “If in truth there were in question any act of injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your complaint.  But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical matters of your law, look after it yourselves.  I do not choose to be a judge of such matters.”  With these words he drove them from his judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius Pilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees.  Exulting at this discomfiture of the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal.  This was the event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain.  What could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not?  So long as they did not make a riot, or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for all he was likely to care.

[Footnote 3:  Matt. xxvii. 24, “See ye to it.”  Cf.  Acts xiv. 15, “Look ye to it.”  Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes.  The tradition that Gallio sent some of St. Paul’s writings to his brother Seneca is utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and Howson, St. Paul, vol. i.  Ch. xii.; Aubertin, Seneque et St. Paul.)]

What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews!  If Seneca had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews