Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 18:13

"saying, This man persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law." — Acts 18:13 (ASV)

The promise given Paul in the vision was that he would be protected from harm at Corinth, not that he would be free from difficulties or attack. As more and more people responded to Paul’s preaching, his Jewish opponents attacked him and laid a charge against him. This occurred, Luke says, “while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia.” From what we know of Roman history, Luke is amazingly accurate in the words he uses to designate the various governing officials of Roman provinces.

Gallio was the son of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the distinguished Spanish rhetorician (50 B. C.– A. D. 40). He was born in Cordova at the beginning of the Christian Era and named Marcus Annaeus Novatus. On coming to Rome with his father during the reign of Claudius (A. D. 41–54), he was adopted by the Roman rhetorician Lucius Junius Gallio, and thereafter bore the name of his adoptive father. He was renowned for his personal charm. An inscription at Delphi mentions Gallio as being proconsul of Achaia during the period of Claudius’s twenty-sixth acclamation as imperator—that is, during the first seven months of A. D. 52. Proconsuls entered office in the senatorial provinces on July 1, and therefore Gallio became proconsul of Achaia on July 1, 51, but only for a brief period of time. Paul seems to have been preaching in Corinth for eight or nine months before Gallio came to Achaia as proconsul (i.e., from the fall of 50 to July 1, 51). When he took office, the Jews decided to try out the new proconsul. They brought Paul before him on a charge that he was preaching a religio illicita and therefore acting contrary to Roman law.