Acts 18:13

λέγοντες : in the set accusation which follows there is 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). ἀναπείθει : only here in N.T., “persuadendo excitare, sollicitare,” it is used of evil persuasion in LXX, Jeremiah 36 (39):8 and in Malachi 1:11; Malachi 1:11. παρὰ 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 according 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 bring his teaching under the cognnisance of the proconsul (see Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 190). They may therefore have designedly used a phrase which had a double meaning. But whatever their design, Gallio saw through it, and drew a hard and fast distinction between a charge of illegality against the state and of illegality against Jewish, νόμου τοῦ καθʼ 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 of the Jewish disturbances at Rome about “Chrestus”. Both ἀνθρώπους and σέβ. τὸν Θεόν point to the general nature of the charge, as including 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 if it had been simply connected with their own religious observances, see “Corinth,” Hastings B.D., i., 481.