Nor does the speech of Gallio in Acts 18[:14-15] serve any purpose here, for as a heathen, Gallio had taken office on the condition that he respect the legal rights of the Jews. Since it is fitting that one do as one has promised, it follows that he acted prudently when in conformity with his accepted obligation he refused to exercise jurisdiction over the faith or the religious disputes of the Jews. But according to the author of the memorandum, Gallio must have acted imprudently, for in his second memorandum he says the following: “If a sect has dismissed a preacher or minister who nevertheless attempts to occupy and exercise his office in the place from which he has been dismissed, or if a preacher attempts to preach where he does not have an appointment, then the government should, on the complaint of the injured group, step in and restore peace” etc. Those are his words. But in Achaia the Jews had not called Paul as a preacher and for that reason they lodged a complaint against him with the government, as is reported in Acts 18[:12ff.]. But the proconsul, Gallio, refused to deal with the case or the complaint. According to our memorandist, he must thereby have behaved imprudently.
But it has already been said that it is one thing to permit entry to a new sect and quite another to condescend to maintain an old, well-established sect in external peace and grant it the exercise of its ancient rights and traditions, etc.
As for Abraham’s reply to the rich man: “You have Moses and the prophets” etc., [Luke 16:29-31] a government can cite this against those who in private believe and personally confess a false faith, and it can also cite it against those who, contrary to its ban, begin a new sect and teaching office, namely as follows: We do not intend to punish you on account of your false faith and personal confession, for you have God’s word as well as his teachers and preachers. If you refuse to hear them, our punishment will not help you in any way. But because you are presuming, without our command, to assemble with other people, and without our call to establish new preaching offices, we do on that account intend to punish you, etc.
The memorandist also says: “If a Christian government forbids false faith, it thereby gives governments that adhere to false doctrine a pretext for combatting the true faith” etc. The answer to this, as indicated above, is that here again no distinction is made between faith and the external works of faith, and also that it is true that no Christian government should curb a false faith or confession. But, as was said above, it may curb the assembly and the new public offices [of a false faith], and falsely believing governments are not thereby given leave to do injustice.
For it is entirely within the discretion of a government, whether it be of true or false faith, either to tolerate or to curb a new association, guild, or sect in its territory, entirely according to its good judgment, and it is under no constraint either way. If a government has a false faith and will not permit the assembly of true believers in its territory, that is, properly considered, wrong, as was in part indicated above. But by the standards of its false faith, such a government acts not imprudently or unjustly. They have zeal, but without knowledge, as Paul says. [Rom. 10:2.] Indeed, I would deem it a dissolute, wicked, and indolent government that, faced with something that it in good conscience regarded as unjust and detrimental to its subjects, did not make every possible effort to curb the injustice. Such a government would certainly no more be forgiven by God for that than was Brennus, duke of the Gauls, forgiven by God when his troops reviled and insulted Apollo, who was really only an idol but was deemed by them to be a real god, and robbed his temple.* For God wants to be feared for his name’s sake even among idolaters and he also wants to be feared in a false faith, and it is extremely blameworthy to act against one’s conscience, dissolutely or wickedly, in either a true or a false faith.
* Brennus was the leader of a body of Gauls that had settled in Pannonia. Invading Greece in 279 B.C., he eventually set about the plunder of Delphi. His barbarian soldiers mocked the gods on the sacred hill, but their assault on the temple was frustrated by the skill of the defenders and also by a violent winter storm, which Greek and Roman historians attributed to the intervention of Apollo. Disgraced and wounded, Brennus committed suicide.
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