Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 18:17

οἱ Ἕλληνες omitted with אAB. Not represented in Vulg.

17. ἐπιλαβόμενοι δὲ πάντες Σωσθένην τὸν�, and they all laid hold on Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue and, &c. The verb is used (Acts 21:30) of the violent action of the mob at Jerusalem, and just afterwards (Acts 21:33) of the chief captain’s conduct when he rescued Paul. Neither of these would be a very gentle measure. And we may understand something of the same kind here. The surrounding crowd, of whom no doubt most would be Greeks, catching the tone of the magistrate, prepared to follow up his decision by a lesson of their own, of a rather rough kind. Sosthenes had probably been the spokesman of the Jews, and Paul would not improbably have some sympathizers among the Gentiles. And ‘Jew-baiting’ was not unknown in those days. So with impunity the crowd could wreak their own vengeance on these interrupters of the proper business of the court, and beat Sosthenes before he was out of the magistrate’s presence. The name Sosthenes was a very common one, and we need not identify this man with the Sosthenes mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1:1.

καὶ οὐδὲν τούτων τῷ Γαλλίωνι ἔμελεν, and Gallio cared for none of these things, neither for the questions raised nor for those who raised them. How little Jewish life was regarded by the Romans is shewn in many places in their literature (see Farrar’s St Paul, Vol. I. Exc. XIV.). Tiberius banished four thousand of them to Sardinia, saying that if the unhealthy climate killed them off ‘it would be a cheap loss’ (Tac. Ann. II. 85). Coming from Rome where such feeling was universal, the lives and limbs of a few Jews would appear of small importance, and like the Emperor just named he may have thought it mattered little what became of them.

It is best to take οὐδέν as subject of ἔμελεν, and τούτων not as governed by ἔμελεν, but by οὐδέν.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 18:17

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