Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 50:2 (NA 1999)
Article: Gallio’s Ruling On The Legal Status Of Early Christianity (Acts 18:14-15)
Author: Bruce W. Winter

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TynBul 50:2 (1999) p. 213

Gallio’s Ruling On The Legal Status Of Early Christianity (Acts 18:14-15)

Bruce W. Winter

Summary

The purpose of this article is to examine in detail Luke’s succinct account of the unsuccessful criminal action by some Corinthian Jews against Paul before the governor of Achaea. This is done in order to understand the nature of the case against Paul, Gallio’s legal reasons for rejecting it, the implication of that ruling for early Christians, and the defence Paul mounted in subsequent Roman criminal proceedings.

The discovery of the Delphic inscription of Claudius,1 with its reference to L. Junius Gallio, who is specifically named in Acts 18:12-17 as ‘Proconsul of Achaea’, has been used to provide a fixed point for Pauline and early Christian chronology.2 Gallio was a noted jurist in his day with very important imperial connections. He was named by Claudius in the inscription at Delphi as ‘my friend and proconsul’ (ὁ φ[ίλος] μου κα[ὶ ἀνθύ]πατος).3 The implications of his legal ruling on the Jewish attempt to bring Paul to trial in Corinth were important in defining the status of early Christians in the eyes of the Romans and for the subsequent Roman trials of Paul in Acts.

TynBul 50:2 (1999) p. 214

I. The Setting

A text which attests the possibility of imperial intervention to resolve disturbances within Jewish communities is the famous letter of emperor Claudius to the Alexandrians in A.D. 41. Posted publicly by the Prefect of Egypt, Lucius Aemilius Rectus, for all in Alexandria to read and admire the majesty of ‘our god Caesar’ (τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν Καίσαρος), this letter gave stern warning of imperial intervention if Alexandrian Jews dared to entertain their fellow countrymen whom it specifically named as coming ‘from Syria or Egypt’...‘formenters of what is a general plague infecting the whole world’.4 Given the Jewish network it is not surprising that Thessalonian Jews and others declared before their civic rulers that Paul and Silas were Syrian or Egyptian insurrectionists—‘these who have turned the world upside down have also come here’ (Acts 17:6).

As had happened in Thessalonica and elsewhere following Paul’s evangelistic efforts, there was a major altercation in Corinth between Paul and the Jews as a result of his arguing and ...

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