with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and
their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the
sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius
Pilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of
the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in
a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat
him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the
event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What
could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks
beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot,
or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat
Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for
all he was likely to care.

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye
to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates
often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely
and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to
understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition
that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is
utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written
nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and
Howson, _St. Paul_, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, _Seneque et St. Paul_.)]

What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an
eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how
completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual
expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat
in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca
had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the
only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal,
and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a
passage, quoted by St. Augustine (_De Civit. Dei_, iv. 11) from his lost
book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their
proselytes, and calls them "_gens sceleratissima_," a "_most criminal
race_." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously
believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt
from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on whic