Rehabilitating Gallio and His Judgement in Acts 18:14-15

Abstract

By first-century Graeco-Roman standards, a recent assessment of Gallio – a Roman senator, proconsul and consul of Rome – would have been seen as something of a damnatio that resulted in the dismissal of his achievements and the formal disfiguring of his name from the imperial inscription that bears it in Delphi. However, a re-examination of the evidence of ancient witnesses comes to a somewhat different conclusion about this important Roman senator. Such testimonies would confirm Luke’s presentation of this legally competent proconsul who made a landmark judgement under Roman law on the status of the early Christian movement.