Acts 18:13

Acts 18:13. Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law. There is no doubt but that the ‘law' here alluded to was the law not of the Jews, but of the Empire; it was the Roman, not the Mosaic law, which the stranger Jew, Paul, was accused of violating, and the offence consisted in the attempt to promulgate a religion which was not sanctioned by the imperial government. There were, besides that form of Paganism which was the state religion of Rome, other systems of worship formally sanctioned and recognised by the state; among these, Judaism, although for a time banished from Rome itself, was ranked. The apostle was charged now before the proconsul's court with preaching in Corinth a new and unlawful religion. From Gallio's own comment in Acts 18:15, there is no doubt but that Paul was accused of introducing new deities as objects of worship. It was a novel and unprincipled method of action, and as the event showed, one seen through by the Roman official.