And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection.
Gallio and Paul
The proconsul of Achaia had ended his term of office, and the proconsul appointed by the emperor was Marcus Annaeus Novatus, who, having been adopted by the friendly rhetorician Lucius Junius Gallio, had taken the name of Lucius Junius Antaeus Gallio. Very different was the estimate of his contemporaries from that which has made his name since proverbial for indifferentism. The brother of Seneca and the uncle of Luean, he was the most; universally popular member of that distinguished family. “No mortal man is so sweet to any single person as he is to all mankind”; “Even those who love my brother Gallio to the utmost yet do not love him enough,” wrote Seneca of him. He was the very flower of pagan courtesy and culture. A Roman with all a Roman’s dignity and seriousness, and yet with all the grace and versatility of a polished Greek. Whatever the former proconsul had been, he had not been one with whom the Jews could venture to trifle, nor had they ventured to hand Paul over to the secular arm. But now that a new proconsul, well known for his mildness, had arrived, who was perhaps unfamiliar with the duties of his office, and whose desire for popularity might have made him complaisant to prosperous Jews, they thought they could with impunity excite a tumult. Though Claudius had expelled the Jews from Rome, their religion was a religio licita;but the religion of “this fellow,” they urged, was a spurious counterfeit of Judaism which had become a religio illicita by running counter to its Mosaic Law. Such was the charge urged by a hubbub of voices, and as soon as it had become intelligible, Paul was on the point of making his defence. But Gallio was not going to trouble himself by listening to any defence. He took no notice whatever of Paul. With a thorough knowledge of, and respect for, the established laws, but with a genuinely Roman indifference for conciliatory language, he quashed the indictment and ordered his lictors to clear the court. But while we regret this unphilosophic disregard, let us at least do justice to Roman impartiality. In Gallio, in Lycrias, in Felix, in Festus, in the centurion Julius, and even in Pilate, different as were their degrees of rectitude, we cannot but admire the trained judicial insight with which they saw through the subterranean injustice and virulent animosity of the Jews in bringing false charges against innocent men. But the superficiality which judges only by externals always brings its own retribution. The haughty, distinguished and cultivated proconsul would have been to the last degree amazed had anyone told him that so paltry an occurrence would be for ever recorded in history; that it would be the only scene in his life in which posterity would feel a moment’s interest; that he would owe to it any immortality he possesses; that he had flung away the greatest opportunity of his life when he closed the lips of the Jewish prisoner; that it would be believed for centuries that that prisoner had converted his great brother Seneca to his own “execrable superstition”; that the “parcel of questions” about a mere opinion, and names, and a matter of the Jewish law, which he had so disdainfully refused to hear, should hereafter become the most prominent of all questions to the whole civilised world. And Paul may have suspected many of these facts as little as “the sweet Gallio” did. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Gallio
Inthis fragment of apostolic history, notice--
I. Religious intolerance (Act_18:12) is seen in three things--
1. In the reason of their opposition to Paul. Was it because he had violated any law, invaded any human rights, broken the public peace, or insulted the public morals? No, but simply because he had “persuaded” men to worship God in a way not exactly agreeable to their own views.
2. In the spirit of their opposition. “They made insurrection with one accord.”
3. In the means of their opposition. Bigotry substitutes abuse for argument and in this case bigots sought to crush by invoking the arm of civil authority.
II. Magisterial propriety. Did Gallio, like Pilate, bow to public wish? No, he would not even entertain the case (Act_18:14-15). He meant that the question of religious differences came not within the authority of a civil magistrate. On this principle the Roman government generally acted. Gallio, as a magistrate, acted justly--
1. Towards himself. The magistrate who interferes with the religious opinions of the people incurs a responsibility too great for any man to bear.
2. To his fellow subjects. “Look ye to it.” Religion is not to be settled in courts of law, but in courts of conscience.
III. Social retribution. “Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, and beat him before the judgment seat.” “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” This case develops--
1. The natural sense of justice in humanity. These Greeks had witnessed Sosthenes’ wicked endeavours to crush a righteous man, and their sense of justice was outraged; and now their opportunity occurred for vengeance. This sense of justice is a spark from Divinity, and a pledge that one day justice will be done to all.
2. The reproductiveness of evil in man. Sosthenes had dealt out vengeance to Paul, and now it came back to him in a rich harvest. Violence begets violence, etc. The propagating power of evil is immense. “Satan cannot cast out Satan.” Christ has taught the true theory of this moral expulsion.
3. The power of the gospel. It is more than probable that this is the Sosthenes referred to in 1Co_1:2. So that over this fierce persecutor Paul’s gospel so triumphed, that he became a brother in the holy cause.
IV. Lamentable indifference. “He cared for none of these things.” This can scarcely be nothing more than mere magisterial unconcernedness about religious disputes. As an educated Roman, he regarded the religion of Paul as beneath his notice. Religious indifferentism is one of the greatest and most prevalent evils of this age too, and it is infidelity in its worst form. Mere theoretical infidelity you can put down by argument. But this is beyond the reach of all logic. Religious indifference is--
1. Unreasonable. No question is of such transcendent moment to man as religion, and therefore it is madness on his part to neglect it.
2. Criminal. It is contrary to the wishes and the labours of the holiest men; it involves the abuse of all the means of spiritual improvement; and it is a practical disregard to all the commands of God.
3. Perilous. The danger is great, increasing, but still, thank God, at present avoidable. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The nature and extent of the office of the civil magistrate
If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews--if you would accuse this man of any injustice whereby he had invaded anyone’s right and property, or could lay to his charge any other villainous action done with a mischievous design, and whereby he had disturbed the public peace--reason would that I should bear with you. I should then be obliged by the duty of my place to take cognisance of your matter. But if it be a question of words, and names, and of your law; if the controversy, as it seems to me, be not about civil but religious matters, as about the Word which Paul preached, and the truth of that Word, and whether it be agreeable to your law--it is none of my business to determine such disputes. And this was a wise answer, and showed that he was well acquainted with the nature and extent of his office; and he was too good a man to lift himself in any party, and to abuse the power which was lodged in his hands by applying it to purposes foreign to the original design of it. The words thus opened, naturally lead me to treat of the nature and extent of the office of the civil magistrate.
I. Then let us consider the end and design of civil government. It is plain that civil government was instituted for the preservation and advancement of men’s civil interests, for the better security of their lives and liberties and external possessions. Men soon became sensible of the necessity of civil government for these ends, from the inconveniences they suffered by a private life independent on each other. The proper business of the magistrate is to preserve the external peace and the temporal good of the community; to protect every man in his just right and property (1Th_4:6). But then it is to be considered that these transgressions are subject to be punished by the civil magistrate in a civil capacity only, and not in a religious one. They fall under his cognisance, as they are injurious to men’s civil interests, and not as they have an inherent turpitude in them, and are transgressions of the Divine law; for in that capacity, I conceive, they are out of the magistrate’s power, and not cognisable before any courts of human judicature. The not observing this distinction has introduced no small confusion in this subject. But because those vices which are so many transgressions of God’s laws have also a natural tendency to injure our neighbour in his civil interests, and to disturb the good order and government of the world, therefore it unavoidably happens that the magistrate, in the due execution of his office, does indirectly intermeddle with religion. But though we cannot actually separate the ill influence any vice has upon the society we live in, from its being a transgression of some Divine law, yet in our minds we may make this separation, and consider every vice as a mixed action, as a transgression of the laws of man, and of the laws of God, In the first capacity only it is subject to human judicatures; in the second, it is cognisable only before the tribunal of heaven. For this reason, because vice and wickedness are punishable by the civil magistrate only upon a civil account, sins are differently estimated and differently punished by human and by Divine laws. Human laws make an estimate of sins from the damage they do to private persons, or to the public good, and inflict the greatest punishment upon those sins which are most injurious in this respect. And, therefore, if there be any sins wherein society is no way concerned, which it neither feels nor is affected with, the magistrate has nothing to do with punishing them. Consequently, secret intentions and designs of wickedness, treasonable thoughts, rebellious wishes, and seditious purposes, if they never break out into acts, can never be liable to civil punishments. But with regard to the laws of God the case is far otherwise. He takes an estimate of our sins by other measures, from those degrees of light and knowledge against which the offence was committed, and often punishes those sins most which are least, or not at all, censured by the civil power. Thus anger and revenge with Him is murder, and lustful thoughts and desires, adultery. And other actions there are which, though justly punishable by the civil power, are in their own nature guiltless, and do not displease God, but by being trangressions of that general law, of paying all due obedience to those whom He has set over us.
II. The end and design of religion. Though religion is a great friend to civil government, and the practice of the duties which that enjoins tends very much to our present happiness, and makes this world a much more easy place than it would be without it, yet all this is but remotely the effect of religion, and makes no part of its main and principal design. Religion, in a true sense, and as the word itself imports, is an obligation upon us to God. And, therefore, though men formed themselves into societies for civil reasons, they did not do it upon any religious account; because religion as it relates to God is transacted between a man’s self and God, and is what nobody else is concerned in. So that it is neither necessary in itself nor essential to true religion that great numbers of men should meet together and be incorporated in societies for the better discovery, or the more due exercise of it. Hence it is that they who lived before the institution of civil governments, or the foundation of commonwealths, were as famous for their piety and religion as any who have been since. In this state of nature, I mean before the institution of civil government, religion, as it related to God alone, had no other hold upon men but from the fear and reverence of God, and was a perfect stranger to all human power and outward force. In this state no man whatever could require me to conform to his judgment on religious matters, nor could I require him to conform to mine. This was the case of religion in a state of nature. Let us next see whether any alteration was made in this case by the institution of civil government. Now since those wrongs which men daily received from one another, and which first moved them to eater into societies, did not affect their religion, but their lives, and liberty, and goods, it follows that when they waived their natural freedom, and combined together, they did not at all submit themselves in religious matters to the will of the civil magistrate, as they submitted their persons and properties to be disposed of by him for the obtaining the end of society, the mutual defence and preservation of one another. Men cannot abandon the care of their souls as they may that of their bodies and estates, and blindly leave it to the magistrate to prescribe what faith or worship they shall embrace. And therefore the magistrate ought not to insist upon terms of purely a religious nature with those who are under his government, or exercise his power and authority over them in this respect. This will quickly appear by taking a view of the chief and principal parts of religion. To begin, then, with morality and virtue, which, though unhappily distinguished from religion, are the chief and main things wherein it consists. These are founded in the eternal nature of things, whereby some things are evidently fit, and others as evidently unfit to be done whatever the consequence of them be here. This being plainly the nature of things, we justly conclude it to be the will of God who made us what we are, and put this difference between some things and others, that we should observe this difference in oar actions. And herein we are to be directed by our own reason or conscience: we are accountable to God alone. But what if anyone upon pretence of conscience, and to show his liberty, should commit any matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, invade anyone’s property, or disturb the public peace? Why, then, I say, no pretence of religion or conscience can screen him from the civil power. He ought to be restrained and punished. But then he does not suffer upon a religious, but upon a civil account. If we place religion in the belief of any set of doctrines, here, too, every man must judge for himself. The magistrate has nothing to do to interpose in this case, to apply force of any kind to bring men over to any particular persuasion. The peace and good order of society are the only points which he is to take care of, and since these are as consistent with men’s holding different opinions in religion, as they are with their being of different sentiments in other matters, the magistrate is no more concerned to intermeddle in religious disputes than he is in those of philosophy, law, or physic. Indeed, if men hold any opinions in religion which are destructive of the peace and quiet of the world, and act in persuance of these opinions, their actions then are of a civil and not of a religious nature, and they render themselves obnoxious to the civil power. For the magistrate to interpose and make himself a judge and an avenger in affairs which are purely of a religious nature is to trangress the bounds of his duty and to invade the prerogative of God; it is to judge and misuse the servants of another master who are not at all- accountable to him. For nothing can be more clear and certain than that as religion has God only for its Author, so it is properly His care and concern only. But such attempts as these are not only wicked and unjust, but very foolish and fruitless, as will appear if we consider that the nature and the virtue too of all religion consists in a free choice, in the consent of our minds, in the sincerity of our hearts, in our being fully persuaded of the truth of what we believe, and of the goodness of what we practise. But of what use can human laws, enforced by civil penalties, be in all this? They may make me do things which are in my power, and depend upon my will; but to believe this or that to be true is not in my power, nor depends upon my will, but upon the light and evidence and information which I have. And will civil discouragements, fines, stripes and imprisonment enlighten the understanding, convince men’s minds of error, and inform them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgment they have framed of things? Nothing can do this but reason and argument. And therefore if the magistrate interposes here, and either chooses a religion for me, or forces me to practise that which I have chosen with temporal rewards and punishments, he destroys my religion and spoils the virtue of whatever I do under that name. But, further, as religion consists in such a belief and practice, as we in our consciences are persuaded to be best and most acceptable to God, as it lies in the integrity of the heart, so it can be subject only to the judgment of the great God whose prerogative it is to be a searcher of the heart and a fryer of the reins; who sees the secret springs of our actions and knows our thoughts and intentions afar off. Upon which account no man upon earth can be a judge in religious matters, nor take upon him the cognisance of this cause. By this time I hope it appears that Gallio acted wise and conscientious part in this affair. For most certain it is, that the duty of the magistrate is confined to the care of the civil and temporal good of his people, and does not extend to their spiritual and eternal affairs. It is nothing to him what false and erroneous opinions men hold, what ridiculous and absurd doctrines they profess, or, in a word, what they believe or disbelieve in religion, so long as hereby they do no prejudice to their neighbour, nor make any alteration in men’s civil rights, nor disturb the public peace and quiet. But here it may be objected, Is the magistrate to show no zeal for the honour of God and the authority of His laws? To this I answer, that since God, who is most certainly the properest Judge in this case, and best knows what are the fittest means to be made use of for these ends, has not thought fit to enforce His laws with any other sanctions but the rewards and punishments of a future and invisible state, nor to promote His honour and true religion by any other motives but these, what authority has any man to make any alteration in what God has established, and to enforce His laws with any other sanctions than what He Himself has appointed? And as to true religion and a right belief, every man is orthodox to himself, and thinks his own religion to be true; and, therefore, if this be any argument why the magistrate should use force in promoting his own religion, it will plead as strongly for false religions as for the true one. As for God’s honour, He Himself is the best guardian of it, and will most certainly take care of it in His own time and way, for He is a jealous God. But then I add, that for men to be restrained from these vices by the power and authority of the civil magistrate, and out of fear of his sword, is no honour to God whatever it may be to Caesar. To conclude: Since religion and civil government are, in their original, and business, and in everything else belonging to them, thus perfectly distinct and entirely different from each other, it would put an end to many controversies, and make very much for the peace and quiet both of Church and State, if men would observe this distinction, and each party would keep within their respective bounds. This would hinder them from clashing and interfering with one another, and would prevent those heats and animosities, those acts of violence and rapine, cruelty and oppression that have abounded in the Christian world upon account of religion. And let the magistrate, too, confine himself to his own proper business and attend to the worldly welfare of the commonwealth, and instead of exercising his power in binding other men’s consciences by human laws, let him take care to conform his own conscience to the laws of God, and direct all his counsels and endeavours to promote universally the civil welfare of all his subjects. And let him not think that he bears the sword in vain unless he employs it in the cause of God and religion. It was not put into his hands for this use, nor can it be applied to this purpose with any good effect. (B. Ibbot, D. D.)
Gallio
illustrates--
I. The laudable administration of justice in his treatment of the point of complaint (verse 12-15). He rejects it because it referred to a purely religious matter.
II. The censurable administration of justice in his conduct at the violence of the Greeks (verse 16, 17). Here he shows himself indifferent and unfair. Magistrates have in ecclesiastical controversies to distinguish between what is above law and what is against the law, and have to resent what is unlawful on whatever side it happens. (Lisco.)
Reports of Christian service
1. The report which is given of Paul’s work in verse 13 is exactly the report which is being given today by hostile journalists and critics. Do not take any bad or worldly man’s report of any Christian service he may have attended. They lack the one thing needful--sympathy. No man is qualified to report a religious meeting who is not himself religious. He can tell who spoke and give an abstract of what was said; but there will be wanting from it the aroma, the heavenliness, which gave it all its gracious power. This has a wide bearing upon all matters religious and theological. The Jews heard Paul speak and they said, “This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law”--that is, contrary to their reading of the law. The law is one thing, and my reading of it another. So with the Bible: the Bible is one thing, and the preacher’s reading of it is another. Have no fear of perverting Jews misrepresenting inspired apostles and bringing God’s doctrine to ruin. The form will change; and yet when all the words have been rearranged we shall find the inner, holy doctrine untouched.
2. The Jews were unanimous in their insurrection. Unanimity is nothing; sincerity is nothing. Sincerity is only good when rightly directed, and unanimity is worthless if moving not in the direction of truth. Paul stood alone, so far as men were concerned, on more occasions than one. Said he, in one instance, “No man stood with me … notwithstanding the Lord stood with me.” Let us take care, then, lest we mistake human unanimity for Divine counsel.
3. And now Gallio, much maligned by those who do not know him, comes into the story. He has been set up as a type of the careless man. And base creatures have been told that they were “Gallios”! They never were so honoured in their lives! Gallio would not touch them with the tip of his fingers! Gallio simply knew his business and attended to it, and limited himself by it; and his carelessness was a distinct evidence of his high qualification for his office. Yet I would chide even Gallio for the unintentional injury he has done (verse 14) in depriving the Church of another speech by the greatest speaker that ever served the cause of Christ. What he would have said to that sweet Gallio who can tell? The substance of his speech we have in all the other speeches; but we do wonder with what accidental beauty and subtlety of allusion he would have addressed the sweetest heart that ever listened to him.
4. Gallio used a phrase which brought him within lines which we wish could have enclosed him forever. Speaking from his point of view, he said, “But if it be a question of words and names.” Could Gallio have heard Paul upon the Word, who can tell what would have occurred? But are we not always putting away from ourselves great opportunities? Do we not feel weary just when the discourse is sharpening itself into the eloquence that would touch our mind like light, and our heart like a wand of love? The next sentence might have saved you, but just then your ears waxed heavy and you did not hear! There may be careless people notwithstanding the misapplication of the name of Gallio. Is it true that you care “for none of those things”? Then for what do you care?(J. Parker, D. D.)
Act_18:17
And Gallio cared for none of those things.
The indifferentism of Gallio
Gallio is one of the most unfortunate characters in all history. It has been his fate to suffer at the hands of foes and friends. It was once the fashion to regard him in the light of this single incident, and to condemn him as selfishly indifferent to all interests but his own. Since he has been studied in the light of his history and character as described by other pens, the verdict has been reversed, and this incident has been interpreted as the action of an impartial, upright judge. The truth, as usual, lies between the two extremes. Gallio is neither so bad as his enemies would make him, nor so good as his friends would have him to be. He is simply a man of the world at his best, and has many modern representatives.
I. What Gallio did not care for.
1. Judaism; as is plain from his judgment. Whether right or wrong, it is quite evident, it was a matter of indifference to him, not only as a magistrate, but, if the spirit of his speech is to be taken into account, as a man.
2. Christianity; for he closed Paul’s mouth. This was not the case with Pilate, or Felix, or Festus, each of whom manifested some interest in the subject, and allowed its advocates to state their case.
3. Truth. Precisely the same issue was raised here as before other Roman tribunals, and, except at Philippi, was impartially discussed; but Gallio gagged the representative of Christianity, and allowed the Greeks to assault the representative of Judaism. Gallio neither knew nor cared on which side, if on either, lay the truth. And there are many Gallios today. The established order of things in religion, morals, politics, society, may remain for aught they care. On the whole, perhaps, it is better that they should remain; but if this order is disturbed by some bold revolutionist, it will not much matter, so long as he does not trouble them. They will be mixed up with neither. The parties may fight it out; and if a third party intervenes and crushes one, so much the better--there is one nuisance the less.
II. What Gallio did care for. What he was sent to Achaia to do. He was responsible to the home government for two things, and about these he was solely solicitous.
1. To administer justice. This he did with perfect impartiality, and in a way that warrants the encomiums passed upon him by his contemporaries. As a Roman judge, he knew nothing of Judaism, and so dismissed the charge against Paul as soon as he heard it, and refused to listen to his defence as superfluous, for he had been guilty of no offence against Roman law. If the mob assaulted Sosthenes that was his look-out; for the future he would mind his own business. And so our modern Gallios are simply men of one idea. That may be business, pleasure, politics, literature. Everything outside is a matter of indifference. “Let them fight it out amongst themselves.”
2. To maintain the supremacy of Roman rule. If Jews persecute Christians; if Greeks maltreat Jews--so much the better. The empire will have fewer malcontents to trouble it while they are trying to exterminate each other. “Divide and rule.” And so our modern Gallios view with equanimity controversies outside their sphere. In politics the one thing that gladdens the heart of the statesman is dissension among his opponents. The Christian advocate is calm in view of the utter want of unanimity on the part of the adversaries of the Cross; but so is the infidel as he contemplates the antagonism of Christian sects. If union is strength, dissension is weakness; and the best thing that Gallio can wish for is division among his foes.
III. By what motives Gallio was actuated.
1. Scepticism. Gallio was neither better nor worse than the cultivated gentlemen of his age. And we know that the culture of the first century was saturated with unbelief. Faith in Jupiter was gone, and no arguments had reached Gallio likely to replace Jupiter by either the Jehovah of Sosthenes or the Jesus of Paul. The thought of the nineteenth century is in this respect like that of the first, and it would be hard to find a mere exact parallel than between Matthew Arnold and Gallio.
2. Love of ease. To have subjected Sosthenes and Paul to a rigid cross-examination, to have pondered the evidence, and to have pronounced accordingly, would have sorely troubled the “sweet Gallio.” He wanted to be troubled neither in the government of his province nor in the government of himself. Sedition he would quell by driving it out, and social disturbers he would treat in a no less drastic fashion. “Don’t trouble us; settle these matters amongst yourselves” is the dictum of Gallio’s latest successors.
IV. The consequences which Gallio reaped.
1. Immediate success.
(1) Insurrection was put down, and the tranquillity of the province restored. Sosthenes was not likely to repeat the experiment.
(2) Paul was silenced, and so Gallio’s mind was left at ease, and neither Paul nor any other Christian advocate was ever likely again to trouble the proconsul.
2. Everlasting loss. Who can tell what might have happened had Gallio embraced the same opportunity as Felix or Festus? He might not have been able to save himself from death at the hands of Nero, with which one account credits him; but he would undoubtedly have saved himself from self-destruction, with which he is credited by another. And our modern Gallios may be able to silence reason and stifle conscience, and live above intellectual and moral care; but this will not annihilate the hereafter. Conclusion:
1. Face the truth, whatever it may be.
2. Side with the truth, whatever it may involve.
3. Follow the truth, wherever it may lead. (J. W. Burn.)
Indifference
1. To be named in the Bible is to be immortal. It is the misfortune of some names that they have found their way into the sacred book. All other records spoke well of them, living and dead, save this. What is this but to say that it is the misfortune of some lives to face an ordeal? Such was the case with Gallio. He refused, indeed, to condemn; but in escaping Scylla he incurs Charybdis, and becomes for all time the type of Indifference. The sweetness for which his friends love him in God’s sight is feebleness.
2. In this particular instance he was not to blame. The Jews are trading upon toleration to invoke intolerance. Orthodoxy? Yes. Nonconformity? No. It is a question, not of crime, but of words and names. He will have nothing to do with it; and when the Gentile mob retaliate, he will have nothing to do with that.
3. The decision was right, but not the motive, which was not justice, but indifference to right and wrong. Thus Gallio passes from the stage in which for a moment he has stood with the gospel to enjoy his highly-gained favour with the Corinthians, to his pleasures, to Rome, and to suicide.
I. Excuses for indifference.
1. Is not indifference a synonym for impartiality?
2. Look at the evil brought upon the world by that earnestness which is the opposite of indifference! When we see the harshness with which earnestness runs down opponents, it is almost refreshing to be in the presence of one who says, “We are all imperfect; live and let live.”
3. To all this we may reply that indifference in some matters may be harmless, and even advantageous. We are not called upon to be earnest about everything. Nevertheless, there is a vice called indifference, which is only too common in our age.
II. To what indifference is due.
1. Affectation. The man does feel. The indifference is a pretence.
2. Early forcing. The modern tendency is to precipitate manhood, and the result of juvenile precocity is adult apathy.
3. Reaction. Earnestness meets with a check, or wears itself out.
4. Suspense. There is an impression abroad that in this transitional period intelligent minds can find no rest, and the “honest doubter” is the hero of the hour.
5. Sorrow. Some affliction has been taken amiss, there has been a nursing of the loss, and so life has lost its zest; or, without this, there may be an unhappiness, vague and all pervading, which strangles every energy of being.
6. Sin. How listless towards duty, etc., the man who carries everywhere with him a guilty conscience.
III. The duty of interesting ourselves in something.
1. God has constituted us differently, and set us in a world fertile in choices. He is not indifferent who cultivates this taste, study, occupation, or that. But in something which is first pure, then vigorous, wholesome, and of good report. God expects each one to interest himself, and with his might.
2. And while He leaves us a wide choice, He sets before us two objects concerning which He offers no choice. He who says, “I love God,” and hateth his brother, is a Gallio; and so is he who says, “I cannot love God, but I will promote the welfare of society.” (Dean Vaughan.)
Religious indifference
I.The character of those things for which our Gallios do not care. Things--
1. For which the Creator cares.
2. Which receive their saving significance from the life and death of the Redeemer.
3. Into which angels desire to look.
4. In behalf of which our ancestors were willing to shed their blood.
5. In which our best friends are most deeply interested.
II. Some of the causes of this indifference.
1. A shallow misapprehension of the nature of religion.
2. Mental sloth.
3. Love of ease.
III. Its effect.
1. At death.
2. At judgment. (Biblical Museum.)
The social indifferentist
1. The things for which Gallio cared nothing were in one sense none of his business. He was the Roman proconsul of Achaia. As elsewhere, so at Corinth, the Greeks heard Paul, and were attracted to him. The Hebrews heard him, hated him, and dragged him before Gallio. But the question being one with which he had nothing to do, Gallio promptly dismissed it. But this was not the end. The Greeks on this occasion believed in the right of free speech, and, like a great many other champions of free speech, they proceeded to proclaim their sympathies by an act of personal violence (verse 17). And though it was without the smallest legal warrant, though it was even a more gross and disorderly breach of the peace than that which had preceded it, “Gallio cared for none of those things.” These dogs of Jews and these emasculated Corinthians, so long as the peace of the empire was undisturbed, what mattered it how much they quarrelled?
2. This is a picture of an amiable and cultivated indifferentism. Its conspicuous characteristic lay in this, that it betrayed an utter insensibility to the simplest principles of justice. Sosthenes and his co-religionists had undoubtedly done St. Paul a wrong; but they had done it under legal forms, and had appealed to the proconsul for their authority. The Greeks, on the other hand, had deliberately taken the law into their own hands. Undoubtedly, in a technical sense, this was no concern of Gallio’s; but, in another and very real sense, his indifference was neither wise, nor loyal, nor manly. If Gallio had really cared to win for the empire the trust and loyalty of her conquered peoples, he would have seen to is that no blow should be unjustly struck, nor any meanest citizen of Corinth, whether Jew or Greek, lightly or lawlessly wronged. But to have done this would have been to break through the crust of that passionless indifference which was the mark of culture in those days.
3. “But that,” we say, “was a pagan culture, and its fruit “was worthy of the tree. We are not pagans, but Christians, and are bound inflexibly to repudiate the principles of such a man.” But what are the facts? One distinguishing mark of our Christian civilisation is a development of individual reserve. We learn to conceal emotions, or at least to chasten their expressions. Tell someone a story of wrong, or want, or sorrow, and the chances are you will get the answer, “Really, how very unpleasant. Can you not find something more agreeable to talk about than that?” Nor is this wholly surprising or without excuse. My neighbour is thrown into a spasm of torture by a musical discord, which my less tutored faculty scarce perceives. It hurts him; and, to leave that fact out of account in judging of the way in which he endures a series of discords, is neither just nor kindly. Now then, it is a result of culture that it makes the sensibilities infinitely more susceptible to external impressions. And therefore it is not unnatural that some natures should be unwilling to hear of the miseries that are torturing so many of their fellow men, nor that, refusing to know about such things, they cease, before long, to care about them. It is the old picture of Gallio watching through the parted drapery the scourging of Sosthenes in the street. It is not an engaging spectacle. Here at hand is the last chronicle of the busy and brilliant life of Rome. Here is the last roll that has come from the pen of Seneca. How much pleasanter to lose one’s self in the pages of Ovid or Lucullus or Martial, instead of going out into the hot sun to stop a street fight between a herd of fanatical Israelites and Corinthians! And so, today, there is a large class that finds it far pleasanter to draw the curtains upon the crime and sorrow that are without, while they have the freshest voice in song or story to beguile them.
4. And yet how utterly is this to miss the noblest end of culture, whose function is not merely to train the powers for enjoyment, but first and supremely for helpful service. And then what is the religion of Jesus Christ but to bring Christ into our common life, and so ennoble that life by the sweetness and sanctity which He alone can shed upon it? Shall we selfishly turn to Him to comfort us, and catch no impulse from His life to reach out and comfort our brethren? Did He come only to teach us how to build handsome churches and keep them for ourselves? Oh, no; it was not merely for you and me that Christ died, but for humanity. Into the culture of that elder time He came to put the one ingredient that it needed supremely to ennoble it--a Divine unselfishness. He came to kill out that torpid indifference that could see cruelty and injustice, and “care for none of those things,” and to supplant it with an inextinguishable and self-forgetting love. Every now and then our ears are startled by some brutal deed, that makes us shudder for our kind. And, reading of it amid our own safe and comfortable surroundings, we cry out, “How shocking! How barbarous! Where were the police?” At best a municipal discipline, however admirable, can only repress and punish the outward manifestations of our social evils. The medicine that shall heal them must be drawn from the Cross. And Christians must be the channels through which the throbbing tide of sympathy shall reach and heal the sorrows and the sins of our fellows. The other day, in Wales, the waters broke out in a colliery. There were four hundred men at work below the surface, and, panic stricken, they rushed to the mouth of the pit and touched the telegraph, when, to their horror, they remembered that that morning the signal wire had parted, and had not yet been mended. With the energy of despair, one of them, trained at sea, flung himself against the rugged sides of the shaft, and, with a grasp that seemed a superhuman endowment given him for the moment, scaled the perpendicular wall until he came to the break in the wire. The parted ends hung within a few inches of each other, but how was he to join them together? To let go his hands and strive to reach them thus was death to himself and death to those below him. Suddenly, with an inspiration born of the dire peril, he grasped one end in his mouth, and reaching then with agonising effort for the other, caught the two between his lips, reunited thus the parted wire, and re-established the electric current that told to those above the danger and signalled swiftly back again the coming of deliverance. What he climbed up to do you and I must climb down to do. There is a vast multitude below us that our lips and hands and feet must bring into living and saving relations with the Son of God.
5. Not to care when others, no matter how obscure or remote from us, are going down to hell, is not Christianity, but paganism blank and heartless; and such paganism is very full of peril. The social problem now confronting us is one of the gravest and most threatening problems of our time. The labourer does not love the capitalist, and the capitalist does not always understand the labourer. But we shall not finally silence the heresies of the communist with the bullets of the militia. Over against the unreason of the working man we must rear something better than the stern front of a stony indifference. If his misfortunes are not our fault, none the less he himself is our brother. And somehow--anyhow--we must make him feel that we account him so. (Bp. H. C. Potter, D. D.)
