Concept

Gallio Inscription

Intro

Paul does not date his letters, and Acts does not give years. So how do historians know when Paul was in Corinth? The answer is a broken stone at Delphi in Greece. It carries part of a letter from the Roman emperor Claudius, and in the middle of it is a name: Gallio, called the emperor's "friend and proconsul."

Acts says that "when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia," the Jews of Corinth dragged Paul before his judgment seat, and Gallio threw the case out (Acts 18:12-17). The Delphi letter can be dated to AD 52, and Roman proconsuls normally served one year. That puts Gallio's term around AD 51 to 52, and it pins Paul to Corinth at a known moment. Almost every timeline of Paul's life is built outward from this one stone.

A fragment of the Delphi letter of Claudius with the name of Gallio (ΓΑΛΛΙΩΝ, highlighted), Delphi Archaeological Museum. Photo: Gérard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.

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In full

The Gallio (or Delphi) Inscription is a group of nine fragments of a Greek copy of a letter from the emperor Claudius to the city of Delphi, recovered in the French excavations of the sanctuary of Apollo. Four fragments were published by Émile Bourguet in 1905; André Plassart brought the full set together in Fouilles de Delphes III.4 (1970), no. 286, and the text is also printed in Dittenberger's Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3rd ed., vol. II, 1917), no. 801 D. The letter gives Claudius's titles, including his twenty-sixth acclamation as imperator, which on the evidence of other dated inscriptions falls in the first half of AD 52. It names "[L.] Junius Gallio, my friend and proconsul," and concerns repopulating Delphi, which the letter describes as short of citizens.

Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus was the elder brother of the philosopher Seneca, born Lucius Annaeus Novatus and renamed on adoption by the senator Junius Gallio. Because proconsuls of senatorial provinces normally held office for one year, beginning in early summer, the letter places his proconsulship of Achaia most probably in AD 51 to 52, with a minority of scholars preferring 52 to 53. The inscription is the single firmest external anchor for absolute Pauline chronology: Acts places Paul's hearing before Gallio after Paul had spent "a year and six months" in Corinth (Acts 18:11, ASV), so the founding of the Corinthian church falls around AD 50 to 52.

Discovery and publication

• Findspot. The fragments came from the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, recovered during the French School at Athens excavations that began in 1892. The letter was probably displayed on a wall of the temple precinct.
• First publication. Émile Bourguet published four fragments in 1905, which already contained Gallio's name.
• Complete edition. André Plassart added further fragments and published the reconstructed text of nine pieces in Fouilles de Delphes III.4 (1970), no. 286.
• Location. The fragments are kept at Delphi; the piece bearing Gallio's name is displayed in the Delphi Archaeological Museum.

What the letter says

The text is broken, and much of it is restored, but the parts that matter for the New Testament are secure:

1. The sender is Claudius, with a titulature that includes his twenty-sixth acclamation as imperator.
2. Gallio is named as proconsul. The fragment that carries the name is the one shown above.
3. The subject is local. Claudius responds to a report about Delphi's shrinking citizen body and asks that well-born people from other cities be invited to settle there.

Nothing in the letter mentions Paul, Christians or Jews. Its value is that it dates a man whom Acts names.

Why the date is AD 52

• Claudius's acclamations were numbered, and the twenty-sixth is not dated directly. Another dated inscription already shows him at his twenty-seventh acclamation by 1 August AD 52, and the evidence for the acclamations before it points to AD 51 and early 52. Scholars therefore place the twenty-sixth in the first half of 52.
• A senatorial proconsul's year normally began in early summer. A letter written in the first half of 52 that calls Gallio proconsul most naturally falls inside a term running from summer 51 to summer 52.
• Seneca later recalled that his brother fell ill with a fever in Achaia and left by ship (Seneca, Moral Letters 104.1), which fits a short tenure.

Calibration. Whether Gallio's year began in 51 or 52 moves Paul's Corinthian stay by months, not decades. For the arguments that rest on it, the window is what counts.

What it shows

1. Gallio is real and correctly titled. Acts calls him anthypatos, proconsul, of Achaia (Acts 18:12). That is the right title for that province at that date. Achaia had been an imperial province under Tiberius and was returned to the senate by Claudius in AD 44, after which it was governed by proconsuls. A writer working from vague memory a century later could easily have got this wrong.
2. Pauline chronology has an anchor. Working outward from Corinth, scholars date the Jerusalem council, the Thessalonian letters and 1 Corinthians, and the arrival in Rome. See Dating of Paul's Letters.
3. Gallio's character fits. Luke shows a proconsul who refuses to hear "questions about words and names and your own law" (Acts 18:15, ASV). That is the attitude of a Roman official who saw the dispute as an internal Jewish matter rather than a crime under Roman law.
4. The bema scene has a setting. "Gallio cared for none of these things" (Acts 18:17, ASV) takes place before the bēma, the judgment seat. A raised platform in the Corinthian forum has long been identified as that rostrum. The identification is probable rather than certain, and it is a separate claim from the inscription.

Biblical references

• Acts 18:12-17, Paul before Gallio. "But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment-seat" (Acts 18:12, ASV).
• Acts 18:11, eighteen months in Corinth before the hearing.
• Acts 18:2, Aquila and Priscilla recently arrived from Italy after Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, a second datable marker usually placed around AD 49.

Evidential status

Mainstream consensus. The reading of Gallio's name and title, the attribution to Claudius and the date of AD 52 are accepted across the field. Debate concerns only the precise months of Gallio's term and how much weight Acts can bear when arranging Paul's other visits (Dixon Slingerland, Journal of Biblical Literature 110, 1991; Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, JBL 112, 1993). It earns grade A in the New Testament Archaeology Evidence Catalog.

What not to claim. The inscription does not mention Paul. It dates Gallio; Acts connects Paul to Gallio.

Scholarship

Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record.

• Emile Bourguet, De rebus Delphicis imperatoriae aetatis capita duo (1905). Open Library
• Colin J. Hemer, The book of Acts in the setting of Hellenistic history (1989). Open Library
• Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, "Paul and Gallio," Journal of Biblical Literature 112 (1993). doi:10.2307/3267232

See also

• Dating of Paul's Letters, the chronology built on this inscription
• Acts as History (Ramsay's Verification), where Gallio sits among Luke's other checkable details
• Church at Corinth, the setting of the hearing
• Erastus Inscription, a second Corinthian inscription bearing on Paul's circle
• Politarch Inscriptions, another case of Luke using the exact local title
• Pilate Stone, the other Roman official named in stone
• New Testament Archaeology Evidence Catalog, the graded catalog this artifact belongs to
• NT Geographical Reliability, the broader case