Gevurot 16:21

21 "And they are proclaiming minhagim which it is not permitted for us, being Romans, to accept or to do." [ESTHER 3:8]

Gevurot 16:21 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 16:21

And teach customs
The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read in the singular number, "custom or law"; referring to the doctrine of salvation by Christ, in whose name the spirit of divination was cast out of the maid, and whom they took for a new deity; and so concluded that the apostle and his company were introducing a new religious law or custom, the worship of another God: which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being
Romans;
for the city of Philippi was a Roman colony, and so the inhabitants of it called themselves Romans; or these men might be strictly such, who were transplanted hither; and with the Romans, it was not lawful to receive, observe, and worship, a new or strange deity, without the decree of the senate ^F12.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Tertull. Apolog. c. 5. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 2.

Gevurot 16:21 In-Context

19 And when her adonim saw that the tikvah of their profit also left her, they seized Rav Sha’ul and Sila, and they dragged them into the marketplace before their manhigim;

20 And having brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, "These anashim, being Jews, are disturbing our city,”

21 "And they are proclaiming minhagim which it is not permitted for us, being Romans, to accept or to do." [ESTHER 3:8]

22 And the multitude rose up together keneged Rav Sha’ul and Sila; and the chief magistrates, having torn off the kaftans of Moshiach’s Shlichim, were giving orders to beat them.

23 And having inflicted klop after klop upon these Jewish men, they threw Rav Sha’ul and Sila into the beis hasohar, giving orders to the soher to guard them securely.