Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 18:17

"And they all laid hold on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment-seat. And Gallio cared for none of these things." — Acts 18:17 (ASV)

Taking their cue from the snub that Gallio gave the leaders of the Jewish community, the crowd at the forum—in an outbreak of the anti-Semitism that always lay near the surface in the Greco-Roman world—took Sosthenes, the synagogue ruler, and beat him. Gallio, however, turned a blind eye to what was going on, evidently because he wanted to teach a lesson to those who would waste his time with such trivialities.