1After these things Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth. 2He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them, 3and because he practiced the same trade, he lived with them and worked, for by trade they were tent makers. 4He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
5When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. 6When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook out his clothing and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles!”
7He departed there and went into the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. 8Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house. Many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized. 9The Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Don’t be afraid, but speak and don’t be silent; 10for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”
11He lived there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. 12But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, 13saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.”
14But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked crime, you Jews, it would be reasonable that I should bear with you; 15but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.” 16So he drove them from the judgment seat.
17Then all the Greeks seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. Gallio didn’t care about any of these things.
18Paul, having stayed after this many more days, took his leave of the brothers, and sailed from there for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. He shaved his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow. 19He came to Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20When they asked him to stay with them a longer time, he declined; 21but taking his leave of them, he said, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you if God wills.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.
22When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the assembly, and went down to Antioch. 23Having spent some time there, he departed and went through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, in order, establishing all the disciples. 24Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus. He was mighty in the Scriptures. 25This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside, and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
27When he had determined to pass over into Achaia, the brothers encouraged him; and wrote to the disciples to receive him. When he had come, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace; 28for he powerfully refuted the Jews, publicly showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
When Paul was preaching the gospel in Corinth, "the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, saying, 'This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law'" (Acts 18:12-13 NKJV). The judgment seat (Greek βῆμα, Heb.בֵּימָה) was occupied, Luke reports, by Gallio the "proconsul of Achaia." Gallio, even before Paul can mount his defense, issues his verdict: "If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves; for I do not want to be a judge of such matters” (Acts 18:14-15 NKJV). Ironically, "all the Greeks" who had gathered (probably out of curiosity) then "took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat" while Gallio "took no notice" (Acts 18:17 NKJV).
Unlike many other historical details in Luke's account, "This assertion that Paul's ministry in Corinth overlapped, at least in part, with the term of office of the Roman governor Gallio is the lynch pin of Pauline chronology. It is the one link between the apostle's career and general history that is accepted by all scholars."[1] The only issue is not if Gallio was proconsul, but when.
Much light was shed on that question beginning in 1905, when four fragments of a stone slab were unearthed by a French team working at Delphi. The slab is a "badly broken inscription" of a letter of the emperor Claudius addressing the depressed state Delphi had fallen into, and mentions Gallio as the proconsul of Achaia.[2] In 1910 Emile Bourguet, working with the French team, identified three more fragments but Pomtow declared they were not part of the same inscription, so they were "ignored in all subsequent discussions of the inscription" until 1967 when A. Plassart "succeeded in joining the two groups of fragments, and added two more."[3] Although some of his readings of the inscription have since been challenged, the important passages for this discussion are not in question. For our purposes, the relevant parts of the inscription read (brackets indicate missing or illegible text), "Tiber[ius Claudius Cae]sar Augustus…" and "[Jun]ius Gallio, my fri[end] an[d procon]sul…"[4] The inscription dates the letter to when Claudius had been "acclaimed imperator for the 26th time."[5] This must be before August A.D. 52, when his 27th acclamation took place. Also, it could not have been prior to November 51, the approximate date of his 25th acclamation. Moreover, since acclamations "were related to military prowess, and normally no major campaigns were undertaken in the winter,"[6] Claudius' 26th acclamation almost certainly took place "in the late spring or very early summer of A.D. 52," probably April or May.[7] It has been theorized Gallio arrived in Achaia and after assessing the situation, including Delphi's problems, sent a report to the emperor. Proconsuls normally served for one year (though sometimes they served longer), so this inscription places Gallio in his proconsulship during the most widely accepted time period Paul was staying in Corinth, A.D. 49 - 52.
[1] Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth: Text and Archaeology, (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, c1983, 2002) 161.
[2] Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth, 161.
[3] Trans. by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, (Anchor Yale Bible), (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008)41.
[4] Fitzmeyer, First Corinthians, 41.
[5] Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth: Text and Archaeology, (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, c1983, 2002), 162.
[6] Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth,163-164.
[7] Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth, 161.