39°
13. λέγοντες, Ὅτι παρὰ τὸν νόµον οὗτος ἀναπείθει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους
σέβεσθαι τὸν Θεόν.
14. μέλλοντος δὲ τοῦ Παύλου ἀνοίγειν τὸ στόμα,
εἶπεν 6 Γαλλίων πρὸς τοὺς Ιουδαίους, Ei μὲν οὖν 1 ἦν ἀδίκημά τι ἢ
ῥᾳδιούργημα πονηρόν, ὦ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, κατὰ λόγον ἂν ἠνεσχόμην ὑμῶν :
1 ουν om. ΑΒΡΕ, Chrys., verss., Tisch., W.H., R.V., Weiss, Wendt, Blass. D
Flor., Vulg. read w ανδρες lovd.
Statius, Silv., ii., 7, 32, speaks of him as ‘dulcis Gallio,”’ and his brother Seneca writes of him : “ Nemo mortalium uni tam dulcis est quam hic omnious,” Quest. Nat., iv., Pref., and see other references and testimonies, Renan, Saint Pau, p. 221, and ‘“‘Gallio,” B.D.?, It is quite possible that the Jews took advantage o1 his easy-going nature and aftability, or, if he had recently arrived in the pro- vince, of his inexperience. Gallio’s Hellenic culture may have leu to his selection for the post (Renan, 1. s., Ῥ. 222). The notion that as a Stoic he was friendly disposed towards the Christians, and on that account rejected the accusa- tions of the Jews, is quite without tounda- tion, see Zéckler, in loco. The name ot Junius Gallio was an assumed one; its bearer, whose real name was Marcus Annzus Novatus, had been adopted vy the rhetorician, L. Junius Gallio, a triend of his {αΐΠετ.- -κατεπέστησαν, Cf. xvi. 22, verb, only found here. Rendall, 14 loco, renders “' made a set assault upon Paul,” expressing the culmination Οι the Jewish hostility in a set assault (not against, as in A. and R.V.).—6p09., as in xv. 25.---τὸ βῆμα: of the proconsul, probably erected in some public place, a movable seat o judgment.
Ver. 13. λέγοντες: in the set accu- sation which follows there 1s probably an indication that the Jews could not stir up the crowd against Paul as at Philippi and Thessalonica, for already he had gained too good an influence over the common people (Weiss).—avame(Oer : only here in N.T., “‘ persuadendo excitare, sollicitare,” it is used of evil persuasion in LXX, Jer. xxxvi. (xxix.) 8 and in 1 Macc. i, 11.—wapa τὸν νόµον: “contrary to the law”: what law? Roman or Jewish ? in a certain sense the expression might include both, for as a religio licita the Jewish law was under the protection of the Roman law, and Josephus tells us how leave had been granted to the Jews to worship aceording to their own law, Ant., xiv., 10, 2 ff. But Paul’s teaching was to these Jews the introduction of something illegal, contrary to the religion
which they were allowed to practise, and so they sought to oring his teaching under the cognisance οι the proconsul (see Zahn, Eznlettung, 1., p. 190). They may therefore have designedly used a phrase which had a double meaning. But whatever their design, Gallio saw through it, ana drew a hard and rast distinction between a charge ot illegality against the state and of illegality against Jewish, νόµου τοῦ xa® ὑμᾶς, not Roman law. in this reply Gallio showed that he knew more about the matter than the Jews supposed, and he may have had some intelligence ot the Jewish disturbances at Rome about ‘‘Chrestus”. Both ἀνθρώ- πους and σέβ. τὸν Θεόν point to the general nature of the charge, as includ- ing Paul’s efforts to convert not only Jews but proselytes. At least the Jews would try to give their accusation a colour of illegality against the Roman law, for they would themselves have dealt with it it it had been simply con- nected with their own religious obser- vances, see “ Corinth,”’ Hastings B.D., i, 481.
Ver. 14. péAAovtos: Lucan; see Bur- ton, p. 71, on οὖν, see critical note and Alford, 1 loco, for its retention.— ἀδίκημα, cf. xxiv. 20, only once elsewhere in N.T., Rev. xviii. 5, here it may perhaps mark a legal wrong, a wrong against the state—the word is used in classical Greek ot a breach οἱ law ἀδίκ. τῶν νόµων, Dem., 586, 11, while ῥᾳδιούργημα marks rather the moral wrong. pad., cf. xiii. το, not elsewhere either in classical Greek or LXX, but cf. Plut., Pyrrh., 6, “if a misdemeanour or a crime”: so Ramsay.—xata λόγον: ut par est, merito ; cf. use ot the phrase in Polyb. and 3 Macc. iii. 14 (παρὰ λ., 2 Macc. iv. 46, 3 Macc. vii. ϐ).---Ιουδαῖοι without ἄνδρες. perhaps in contempt (so Knabenbauer), but see critical ποίε.--- ἠνεσχόμην, ¢f. Luke ix. 41, and so several times in St. Paul’s Epistles, 2 Cor. xi. 1, 4; on the augment and construction see Blass, Gram., pp. 39, 102, Simcox, Language of the New Testament, p. 34, note, and Burton, p. 103. ‘