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Paley, William, 1743-1805

"Evidence of Christianity"

xviii. 12. [p. 55.] "And when Gallio was deputy (proconsul) of
Achaia."
The propriety of the title "proconsul" is in this still more critical.
For the province of Achaia, after passing from the senate to the
emperor, had been restored again by the emperor Claudius to the senate
(and consequently its government had become proconsular) only six or
seven years before the time in which this transaction is said to have
taken place. (Suet. in Claud. c. xxv. Dio, lib. lxi.) And what confines
with strictness the appellation to the time is, that Achaia under the
following reign ceased to be a Roman province at all.
IX. [p. 152.] It appears, as well from the general constitution of a
Roman province, as from what Josephus delivers concerning the state of
Judea in particular, (Antiq. lib. xx. c. 8, sect. 5; c. 1, sect. 2.) that
the power of life and death resided exclusively in the Roman governor;
but that the Jews, nevertheless, had magistrates and a council, invested
with a subordinate and municipal authority. This economy is discerned in
every part of the Gospel narrative of our Saviour's crucifixion.


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