proverb of complacent indifference.[2]

[Footnote 2: Acts xxv. 19.]

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.