(1) Teaching in the Synagogue (19:8)

(1) Teaching in the Synagogue (19:8)

I. PAUL IN THE SYNAGOGUE AND A SCHOOL (19:8–10)

After beginning in the synagogue, as he usually does, Paul is forced by hostility there to withdraw to a more neutral venue (cf. similarly 18:6), which also proves less threatening to Gentiles. Following the model of Greek philosophers widely respected in Ephesus, Paul speaks as a Christian sage, exposing Jews and Greeks alike to his message.

(1) Teaching in the Synagogue (19:8)

That Paul was able to speak boldly[5223] in the synagogue[5224] for three months,[5225] and initially at its invitation (18:20), suggests that Jewish communities in more cosmopolitan areas may have often been more tolerant of new ideas (contrast 17:2 in the urban but somewhat smaller Thessalonica). Paul’s first convert in Asia was Epaenetus (Rom 16:5), perhaps part of this synagogue community (though perhaps earlier, in the period depicted in Acts 18:19–21, or in the period of 19:1 before the events of 19:1–7).

But even here Paul’s message eventually made him unwelcome. As in Corinth (18:6), he seems to work with the conviction that he must expose many people to his message in a limited time, and hence he follows the basic pattern, laid down by Jesus, of leaving where one is not welcome (Luke 9:5; 10:11; cf. Gen 26:16–22).

It appears that this synagogue was not yet a place of liturgical services (or at least this did not consume the entire meeting, or that people gathered for discussions on occasions in addition to services); Luke’s focus here is not even a Torah service (contrast Acts 13:15; see comment there), at least not explicitly, but a meeting place that includes dialogue and dispute about the Torah (on “reasoning” in the synagogue, see comment on Acts 18:4). The function of synagogues may not yet have been standardized in this period.[5226] (For Gentiles, even the eventually standard Torah service appeared like an exotic foreign philosophy, lacking normal features of a Gentile religious cult.)[5227]

(2) Conflict in the Synagogue (19:9)

From the perspective of the synagogue community, this newcomer, Paul, had been welcomed hospitably (18:20) but, when opposed, took some zealous synagogue members with him (some of them probably relatives of those left behind); his unbridled zeal for his views also led to public embarrassment for the normally well-accepted Jewish community in Asia (19:33–34). Such behavior provoked predictable hostility from many members of the local synagogue (21:27, 29).[5228]

Luke’s perspective differs. For him and for Paul, unbelief regarding God’s truth constituted rebellion against God. The truth was obvious, and only the morally or spiritually closed minded would reject it (28:26–27); Jesus said not to waste time on those who rejected the gospel as long as others had not yet heard it (Luke 10:10–11).[5229] In this approach, new disciples had to be guarded from this environment’s growing hostility. If members of the synagogue were slandering “the Way” publicly (from the authoritative position of critiquing an intra-Jewish view), remaining within the synagogue would do more harm than good.[5230] Their “speaking evil” (κακολογέω) was severe; the phrase was applied in the LXX to cursing, sometimes with a capital sentence (Exod 21:17; 22:28; 1 Sam 3:13; Prov 20:20), and to evil slander (2 Macc 4:1).[5231]

Luke uses the term σκληρύνω, “harden,” to describe the condition of Paul’s opponents, resembling the denunciation of Stephen’s opponents in Acts 7:51; the term used here would evoke its rich use in the LXX. The most common LXX use applies to God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart to fulfill God’s purpose (Exod 10:1);[5232] it also applies to Israel’s disobedience (Deut 10:16; 2 Kgs 17:14; 2 Chr 30:8; cf. 2 Chr 36:13; Neh 9:16–17, 29; Ps 95:8; Jer 7:26; 17:23; 19:15),[5233] which could also be attributed to God’s anger (Isa 63:17). This OT use may suggest an idea familiar from Pauline theology: God’s hardening his own people so that Paul could go to the Gentiles (Rom 11:11, 25).[5234] God’s hardening of Pharaoh becomes a paradigm for Israel (9:17–18).[5235] For ἠπείθουν, “disobeying,” see Acts 14:2; contrast 26:19. For “the Way,” see comment on Acts 9:2.

Some scholars contend that the split between synagogues and the Jesus movement reflects a later generation than Paul’s,[5236] but while this is likely true in some cities, proposing this for all cities underestimates the intra-Jewish conflicts that already existed (Rom 11:28; 15:31; 2 Cor 11:24; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6; 1 Thess 2:14–16).[5237] (Those who doubt that Paul even went to synagogues err on the other side; see comment on Acts 13:5.) Apparently, the problem of division within the synagogues of Asia continued in the late first century, as often argued for the Johannine community (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2),[5238] but this conflict in that period may have dominated more in Smyrna and Philadelphia than in the synagogue or synagogues of Ephesus (Rev 2:9; 3:9; cf. Mart. Pol. 12.2).[5239]

(3) Paul’s School (19:9)

Ephesus was a center of rhetoric,[5240] where public debate would be a normal course. In earlier times, some ancients criticized Ephesian philosophy as second-rate (Plato Theaet. 179E–180A), but the city’s reputation grew, perhaps with its economic ability to draw teachers. As a center of rhetoric, Ephesus hosted many prominent sophists, including Damianus,[5241] Lollianus,[5242] Dionysius,[5243] and others.[5244] When Tacitus mentions rhetoric students honoring their teachers, his specific examples are in Ephesus and Mitylene (Dial. 15). The noted Stoic philosopher Heraclitus, who predicted the world’s future dissolution by fire, was also from there.[5245]

TYRANNUS’S MEETING PLACE

From classical Greek forward, σχολή applied to schools or to the location where schools gathered.[5246] Such “schools” could meet anywhere the lecturer and the pupils agreed.[5247] Roman schoolteachers taught wherever they could, even outside, but preferably in a house or rented quarters.[5248] When regular classrooms were available, they often included a statue of Hermes; Cicero’s friend procured a Hermathena[5249] for him, since Minerva was also appropriate for his classroom (Cic. Att. 1.4, ¶2).[5250] Typical schools for Greek boys held 60–120 pupils.[5251] At a more advanced level, Greek and Roman scholarship was quite sophisticated in matters of grammar, geography, and so forth.[5252] Such schools also could be large, and advanced students were usually in their mid- to late teens, though some older students might also attend.[5253]

But while a school may meet in this location, we should think here not of an elementary school or a “school” building but of a hall used for lectures, as most scholars recognize.[5254] Such lecture halls were in common use in the cities of the empire.[5255] Rhetorical students would declaim in such a “schoolroom and lecture-hall” (schola et auditorium, Pliny Ep. 2.3.6 [LCL, 1:86–87]). Not everyone thought highly of such a venue. Dio Chrysostom criticized those who lectured only in private halls instead of declaiming in public (Or. 32.10).[5256] Others argued that the real oratorical action belonged not to lecture halls but to legal conflicts in the forum (Tac. Dial. 10).[5257] But such a venue would still allow Paul to have an impact on many hearers, including the sort most attracted to professional teachers.

The precise location remains uncertain. Some scholars have pointed to a hall (called an αὐδειτώριον in a third-century inscription) adjoining the second-century library of Celsus in Ephesus;[5258] this would simplify the apprehension of two of Paul’s colleagues from this well-known location, just beyond the commercial agora, dragging them the short distance up the Marble Street into the theater (Acts 19:29).[5259] Subsequent examination, however, suggests that this “auditorium” was used as a courtroom rather than a lecture hall.[5260]

Although most scholars today accept the idea that the σχολή here is a lecture hall, Malherbe has pointed out that the term often applied to a guildhall, which he believes was often named after the guild’s patron. Thus he suggests that Luke views the hall as something like a meeting hall of a collegium, or guild, with Paul as an artisan more than a philosopher.[5261] But all the extant Ephesian inscriptions show that guilds named their buildings for their guilds, not the guilds’ patrons (e.g., I. Eph. 444, 547, 2076–80).[5262] Whether Tyrannus’s building was a school, lecture hall, or guildhall makes little difference in the end, as Paul does use it as a lecture hall and school. But Paul’s use of it probably does match the building’s usual function, increasing his status for using that particular site.

Most likely, Tyrannus was not a guild patron but either the landlord or the building’s usual orator during regular hours.[5263] Because “Tyrannus” means “Tyrant,” it could be a nickname, perhaps for a difficult teacher.[5264] If it is a nickname, this was probably the hall’s popular name in Ephesus,[5265] not a name that Luke coined for it (though perhaps most of his audience would not have known the difference). This might tip the scales in favor of his being the usual lecturer rather than the landlord, but certainty eludes us.[5266] If we take the designation as “Tyrant,” it could be a subsequent designation for the “Neronian Hall” in the auditorium area.[5267] But a name is also possible, without negative connotations:

Only one Ephesian inscription mentions a tyrant (IEph. 1377), but it is too fragmentary to be of any use. Nine men named Tyrannus are mentioned, including at least three from the first century who would also be in a position to own a school: Tyrannus, son of Apollonius, the priest of Ares (IEph. 3417); M. Pacuvius Tyrannus the Curator (IEph. 1001); and L. Tarutilius Tyrannus also a Curator (IEph. 1012 and 1029).[5268]

The name was unusually common in Ephesus,[5269] and “its recurrence in the 1st–2nd cent. Curetes lists may suggest its use as a cognomen in successive generations of a small group of perhaps interrelated leading families from whom these functionaries were drawn.”[5270] It is possible that Tyrannus was among the new movement’s patrons,[5271] or perhaps he was a wealthy person acting on a patron’s recommendation (see comment on the Asiarchs at Acts 19:31). Inscriptions show that some Asiarchs, some of whom were Paul’s “friends” (probably patrons, Acts 19:31), functioned as patrons for public lectures and education.[5272]

Many scholars suggest that the Western text preserves a reliable tradition concerning when Paul used the lecture hall—namely, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.[5273] Although the Western text is often given to guesses (some more educated than others), this variant reading is both specific and plausible enough that it might reflect reliable tradition; if not, it is at least a reasonable guess from someone familiar with the arrangements of ancient schools. If Paul was working throughout this period of his ministry (cf. Acts 20:34; 1 Cor 4:12),[5274] he may have worked from dawn till about 11:00 a.m. (about five hours),[5275] “then devoting the next five hours to the still more exhausting business of Christian dialectic.”[5276] Most people in Ionia stopped working for several hours at 11:00 a.m., and this reflected a more widespread custom;[5277] elsewhere commentators typically cite Mart. Epig. 4.8.3 (giving 11:00 a.m.), but resting at midday appears throughout ancient literature.[5278]

If this tradition is correct, probably Tyrannus or someone else lectured in the hall during the normal school hours of the morning.[5279] Even secondary education began at dawn, but Greeks normally continued it after the midday break in the afternoon whereas Jews reconvened in the evening.[5280] Presumably, however, an adult lecturer would have more flexibility with hours.[5281] One later lecturer, for example, would teach grammar in the mornings, then declaim in the afternoons.[5282] Further, “formal lectures for a clientele who could afford to attend in the mornings would be over by eleven.”[5283]

Perhaps few members of Paul’s audience, however, would be people of leisure and hence able to attend morning lectures; most would be working in the morning.[5284] Even artisans in Ephesus might leave their work to listen to a particularly prominent sage (Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.1).[5285] Many urban workers labored in the markets and elsewhere from dawn till sundown,[5286] so that sacrificing the few leisure hours around noon displayed serious commitment on the part of Paul’s students if the above tradition’s arrangement is correct. Perhaps the largest crowds came during the siesta hours (on which see comment at Acts 26:13), and Paul’s more formal students, some perhaps supported by Paul’s work or benefaction, continued for a few hours after the crowds had gone back to work (hence until 4:00 p.m.).

PAUL AS A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER

Luke’s portrayal of Paul as a popular sage is respectable and useful for his purpose, but it is hardly his invention; the Paul of the letters reasons like an intellectual. Speakers could declaim anywhere, but special halls for regular meetings indicated and conferred status.[5287] Not all philosophers had such facilities available;[5288] even in the case of Epictetus, we do not know where his school met.[5289] Speakers coming to a city would first declaim and seek to draw attention.[5290] Most cities also had public halls for orators to declaim,[5291] but only an established teacher would have a regular meeting place.

Securing use of an official lecture hall meant that Paul no longer played the role of a street corner Cynic (see comment on Acts 14:8–10), user of public buildings, or lecturer at banquets; he was now a recognized teacher of philosophy in Ephesus, with his own students, listeners, and patrons. Because Paul lectured there regularly, he clearly had an arrangement for use of the building (as opposed to simply declaiming in a public portico or market). Yet as with some other popular teachers,[5292] he undoubtedly welcomed the public to venture in and listen alongside whomever he was training more specifically. That is, though no longer on the street, these lectures were most likely open to the public; he speaks of lecturing “publicly” in Ephesus in Acts 20:20.[5293]

People would thus view Paul as a philosopher or rhetorician—the categories that their environment provided for a lecturer meeting in such a hall.[5294] Acts presents Paul as highly trained for public discourse in the Greek world, or with an aptitude for rapid learning, or, most likely, both. Early in his ministry he speaks in synagogues, a venue for which study under Gamaliel (22:3) should have best prepared him, but progressively he is able to package himself in the more broadly acceptable categories of sophist and philosopher (17:18–31).[5295]

This public role would have provided Paul a high status and hence connections with powerful individuals (19:31).[5296] Many rhetoricians in Ephesus were high-status officeholders;[5297] although Paul was not, he had sufficient rhetorical and other intellectual skills to maintain a serious following.[5298] Nor would Paul’s artisan work (18:3; 20:34) have necessarily degraded him in the eyes of most people here;[5299] Ephesus had some wealthy and prominent artisans and also an emerging nouveau riche class that was displacing the older hereditary elite.[5300] Despite usual elite prejudices elsewhere (see comment on Acts 18:3), even readers elsewhere might appreciate Paul’s work there. Musonius Rufus emphasizes earning a living with one’s hands, though born as an equestrian.[5301]

PLAUSIBILITY OF THIS PORTRAYAL

Some scholars doubt that the historical Paul could have packaged himself in such terms. Though he shows a philosophic impulse, “he would never have accepted that kind of designation,” in part because he rejected the world’s wisdom (1 Cor 1:19–25; cf. Col 2:8).[5302] If he gained a public hearing among Greeks, however (cf. 1 Cor 9:21), Paul would have been understood in such terms by outsiders, and he could have accommodated himself accordingly for the sake of reaching people (9:20–21). As we shall see, Paul’s letters do reveal the use of philosophic language, even if he did not use the title “philosopher” for himself.

It was philosophy that addressed moral issues whereas religion generally focused on cult; various vocations studied ancient texts, but most people would hear them more often from public speakers than in cults.[5303] Christianity’s common goals as a teaching movement in a Mediterranean context would lead to its appearing like a philosophic school.[5304] Structural similarities already existed between synagogue meetings (with their readings and homilies) and philosophic schools.[5305] Outside a synagogue, such communication of information would naturally be understood in the categories that Greeks had available. Nor would a school setting be incompatible with Paul’s work in house churches.[5306]

Philosophic groups could create “nontraditional and radical social formations” such as utopias or anti-utopias; Josephus and Philo each portray the Essenes (and Philo also the Therapeutae) as such “radical philosophical communities.”[5307] Philo may have conducted a school in a manner analogous to other Greek and Roman teachers.[5308] Indeed, some scholars have found Paul’s Christian communities closer to the Stoic communitarian ideal than any Stoic movements known to us from Paul’s era.[5309] Although people had some conventional expectations for popular philosophers’ appearance, many recognized that it was the content, rather than garb or hair length, that made for true philosophers (Mus. Ruf. 16, p. 106.12–16).

Scholars often comment on the rhetorical skills in Paul’s epistles; although Paul’s style is not rhetorically sophisticated (neither was that of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus despite his academic training), his argumentation is skillful. That he honed such skills not only in debate in the synagogue but also in a non-Jewish Hellenistic school setting is entirely reasonable. But while Paul used what rhetorical knowledge he had, he would have been seen, as noted above, primarily as a philosopher.

Paul’s earlier letters include elements that would have been at home in Stoic (e.g., Rom 1:20; 2:14–15; 1 Cor 6:12; 8:5–6; 12:12) and sometimes Platonic (2 Cor 4:16–18) circles. Even before his ministry in Ephesus, we likely find the language of the ideal Cynic in 1 Thess 2.[5310] That Philippians (e.g., Phil 4:8, 11) includes even more philosophic language suggests that Paul’s philosophic vocabulary grew in time.[5311] Granted, Paul lacks many interests of concern to particular philosophic schools (such as cosmology or elaborating on rules of logic), but he is conversant enough with the language to write as a moralist. “Sage” was one of the most apt categories with which his Greco-Roman contemporaries could have identified him. On Paul’s education, which probably focused on Torah and probably included little philosophy, see comment on Acts 22:3. Paul would not have used Greek philosophy to inform his exegesis as Philo did, but the latter demonstrates that Jewish exegetical training in Greek could include at least some philosophic knowledge.

Paul’s letters attest his ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 15:32; 16:8), though they do not reveal what specific techniques he learned there while interacting with his students. Some scholars have compared Paul’s rhetoric in his epistles to rhetorical “Asianism,”[5312] but despite some affinities in the use of figures, Paul’s style in his early, undisputed letters lacks characteristics of Asianic rhetoric.[5313] Given the normal use of the label “Asianism” as a designation of abuse,[5314] however, its absence in Paul may be just as well, perhaps even in Ephesus.[5315] Paul would be classed more as a philosopher than a rhetor; it is questionable whether he could have survived long purely as the latter, given apparent deficiencies at least in delivery in earlier years (1 Cor 2:3; 2 Cor 10:10). Because various philosophic sects often differed radically in their approaches, Paul’s lack of advanced training in a particular philosophic school would not have prevented his reputation as a sage in an alternative intellectual system.

LOGISTICS OF RUNNING THE SCHOOL

The format of (more traditional) schools varied: teachers could offer lectures, either formal (sometimes read) or informal; many philosophic schools also included “the exegesis and discussion of texts”; class discussions (at times using questions and answers) were common; finally, teachers could dialogue with one student in front of the rest of the students.[5316] Both Luke and Paul lead us to expect that Paul would have used the Scriptures for texts and that he may have used some acceptable philosophic lecture forms such as diatribe.[5317] (Against Bultmann, Paul’s use of diatribe characterizes classroom teaching more than specifically street corner preaching.[5318] Moreover, a diatribe approach may have been not so different from his training in Jerusalem as is often supposed.)[5319] If his letter to the Romans is at all representative of his dialogic teaching style, it suggests that he interpreted Scripture and used conventional forms of “ethical-religious instruction.”[5320]

Popular interest in hearing acclaimed speakers was great,[5321] so that once Paul’s status was secured and his reputation grew, his influence would grow accordingly (see Acts 19:10). Given Paul’s apparent refusal to accept fees (20:33–34) and his likely policy of accepting all inquirers,[5322] his school probably grew at a tremendous pace. The demand for sophistic schools far exceeded the supply in places such as Alexandria;[5323] given the rapid growth in rhetorical interest in Ephesus in this period,[5324] Ephesus probably experienced the same shortage.

In addition to regular students, many other interested persons would come to listen; rhetorical students, for example, learned declamation by going to hear practice speeches in the schools.[5325] After attending lectures with one teacher, students might go to listen to another.[5326] Teachers with large numbers of students often had little leisure time;[5327] given Paul’s other responsibilities (20:34), we may be certain that he, too, had little (20:31). Paul also taught in more private settings (20:20); probably some of his students accompanied him on such occasions, as students of other teachers sometimes did.[5328] In Luke’s account, Paul’s academic activity in 19:9, focused on Christ, produced a massive cultural impact.[5329] Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s success reflects an optimism that the gospel could succeed in open and intelligent dialogue.[5330]

How would the hall have been paid for? There are several possibilities, in order of increasing likelihood:[5331]

These options are not mutually exclusive, and it is likely that at least the use of patrons (see comment on Acts 19:31) and lower rent for using the building in off-hours (the Western reading) are compatible and plausible explanations. Benefactors increased their own reputation by sponsoring public work that was popular, and Paul’s growing movement (19:10) would certainly qualify until an adversely affected guild complained about his monotheistic “intolerance” (19:26), probably embarrassing his wealthy supporters. Asiarchs were among patrons of public education in Ephesus; see comment on Acts 19:31.[5332] A letter of recommendation from a person of high status could also help secure property at a reasonable price (Pliny Ep. 1.24.1–2).

ALL ASIA HEARS THE MESSAGE (19:10)

Paul’s two years in Acts 19:10 are added to, rather than include, the three-month period of 19:8 (hence a total of parts of three years in 20:31).[5333] By usual reckonings, this represents roughly the period from the fall of 52 to the summer of 55[5334] or, at the latest, the spring of 53 to the summer of 56. This was the period in which Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and probably an earlier letter no longer extant (1 Cor 5:9),[5335] received a delegation from Corinth (16:17–18; cf. 1:11), and also visited Corinth very briefly (cf. 2 Cor 12:14; 13:1; probably 2:1).[5336] More important for Luke’s point, it included dangerous opposition (1 Cor 15:30–32; 2 Cor 1:8–10).

That Paul’s message spreads to all Asia is a recurrent point in Luke’s description here (Acts 19:10, 17, 20), twice specifying both Jews and Greeks (19:10, 17) and twice concluding a section (19:10, 20). The claim especially frames the spectacular account of 19:11–20, which might recall the less successful outcome (in terms of short-term public response) of Paul’s exorcism in 16:18–19. This more successful response draws attention to an irony: just before the earlier passage, the Spirit did not allow Paul to enter Asia (16:6); but now (perhaps after Paul’s preparation in Achaia) the time is right, and the word of God spreads there. Yet even here success comes at a price: challenging the vested economic interests of paganism, Paul will face opposition (19:23–29).

The spreading of the message from Paul’s immediate circle in Ephesus to all of surrounding Asia comports with the duration of Paul’s stay, longer than in any other single ministry location (20:31). It also fits the picture of Ephesus’s growing strategic importance in this period (see comment on Acts 18:19). Many coming to Ephesus for various reasons would take news about the movement from Ephesus to elsewhere, and a number would take back their discovery of its message.[5337]

The claim that “everyone who lived in Asia” heard the message of Christ is hyperbole (cf. 19:17); Luke elsewhere employs the hyperbolic “all” in similar ways (Luke 2:1; 6:17–19).[5338] It points to the very plausible spread of the gospel from this center in Ephesus, however, and also serves important literary functions in this text. This spread would counter situations like what Paul encountered on his arrival, where even some Jewish baptists had not heard (Acts 19:2). It also emphasizes that Paul’s mission was reaching both Jews and Greeks (also 19:17):[5339] Jews, despite Paul’s limited success in the synagogue (19:9), and Greeks (the majority of the city’s population), with whom he shared less common theological ground.

That word spread to “all who lived in Asia” may well be hyperbole, but it was the sort of hyperbole well understood in Greco-Roman literature ranging from novels to biographies and history.[5340] In a world without mass media but with many travelers, rumors about the outcome of battles (for example) spread rapidly from one city to another (Plut. Cam. 24.1); since not all rumors were true (as our passage later reveals, Acts 19:28–29), conflicting reports also emerged this way (e.g., Tac. Hist. 1.51).[5341] This phenomenon appears both in historical narrative[5342] and in other forms of narrative that mimicked it.[5343] Pindar expects news of an athletic victory to spread far and wide orally as the ships leaving a place carry songs of victory (Pindar Nem. 5.2–3). Noting how quickly rumor spreads, Cicero recognized that, like other messengers, it would probably reach his brother before his letter did (Quint. fratr. 1.1.1). “Many everywhere” praised Pythagoras as his reputation spread (Iambl. V.P. 2.11 [Dillon and Hershbell, 37]). When one philosopher settled in Pergamum, he became so widely known, with people coming from nearby regions to hear him, “that his fame touched the stars” (Eunapius Lives 465). Other sources also note the rapid travel of rumors.[5344]

Ephesus was an urban regional center,[5345] and word would naturally spread throughout its province and beyond.[5346] We may compare a later story about a handsome and skillful youth in Ephesus: “Everyone in Ephesus sought his company, and in the rest of Asia as well.”[5347] An earlier report mentioned a false rumor circulated through all (tota) Asia (Cic. Flacc. 6.14). Paul might not have been the most famous speaker in Ephesus, but a massive church in early second-century Asia testifies at least in part to the effectiveness of his labors.[5348] Public speakers were among the most highly renowned and prestigious people in the cities of the empire.[5349] The interior of Anatolia was more traditional, poorer, and rural, but its strict religious culture proved fertile ground for Judaism and Christianity, and “Much of the interior had apparently converted to Christianity before the beginning of the 4th century.”[5350]

We know from Paul’s own writings that he had a significant ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8–9) with many enemies (16:9); he also was thinking in terms of reaching “Asia” (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Cor 1:8). Paul presumably expected those who learned from him to propagate, and hence multiply, the message (cf. 2 Tim 2:2). This is probably the period when Paul’s associate Epaphras reached areas such as the Lycus Valley, evangelizing people Paul had not met (Col 1:7; 2:1; 4:12–13).[5351] Dunn’s picture of the expanding mission in this period is likely right: “We can well imagine mission teams being sent out from it, southwards to Magnesia and Miletus, north to Smyrna and Pergamum, and up the river valleys to the cities of the Lycus valley (Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae), to Sardis, Philadelphia and Thyatira.”[5352] The culture was already primed with the means for propagating a beloved teacher’s ideals. Disciples typically propagated the message of their teachers[5353] (though this claim must be nuanced; they nearly always respected them but sometimes did respectfully disagree with them).[5354] More generally, beneficiaries also worked to spread the fame of their benefactors, as a sign of gratitude.[5355]

Paul sometimes spoke of evangelizing areas representatively (Rom 15:19), perhaps because an area with a self-propagating evangelizing church would eventually be saturated if evangelism continued there. But we know that the major cities of Asia were evangelized early; by the time of Rev 2–3, some “were in a state of decline,”[5356] and even to the north in Bithynia, Christians had a great impact, with many former Christians remaining there (Pliny Ep. 10.96–97).[5357] By the time of 1 Pet 1:1 there were Christians in Cappadocia even though it lacked significant cities at the end of the Julio-Claudian period.[5358]

Clearly the Christian message had spread rapidly throughout Asia, and if any single name is preserved for us as most influential in sparking that spread, it would need to be Paul’s. Social control is more difficult and custom less constricting in urban centers, allowing new ideas to flourish more rapidly. Once established in the cities on trade and communication routes, churches began spreading even to the initially more resistant villages by the end of the first century.[5359] Here in Acts, Paul’s ministry has certainly come a long way from the small and resistant beginnings Luke recorded in locations such as Philippi; nevertheless, he will soon need to leave Ephesus as well (Acts 19:21–20:1).

Some scholars doubt Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s success in Ephesus.[5360] (Some even appeal to improbable scholarly conjectures about competition between Johannine[5361] and Pauline Christians there toward the end of the first century.[5362] But Johannine Christians were by then more theologically “Pauline”[5363] than is likely to have engendered competition.)[5364] But even if Luke has concentrated on the positive elements of Paul’s activity and used hyperbole (as all acknowledge in 19:10), it does seem likely that Paul was successful there.[5365] One writer disputes this success partly because Acts provides no evidence that Paul in fact won many converts out of the Artemis cult.[5366] But the Artemis cult was public, for the entire city, not a mystery cult with merely some initiates; even hundreds of converts would not have made a significant dent in the Artemis cult (cf. Demetrius’s hyperbole in 19:27). And even if Paul made extraordinary inroads into the Artemis cult, would we expect Luke to say more than he did say in his summaries of Paul’s wide impact?

In addition to Luke’s explicit claims for growth (19:10, 17, 20), he does envision a significant number of elders in 20:17 (cf. 20:30); the epistle to the “Ephesians” (likely circulated throughout Roman Asia, but with Ephesus named in many early manuscripts probably because it was the most important addressee of the province)[5367] may also testify to the continuing vibrancy of Pauline Christianity in Asia.

II. PAUL’S SIGNS (19:11–12)

That reports of healings generated popular favor is evident from the popularity of healing shrines in antiquity, especially in the empire.[5368] (Ephesus was not famous for these but was one of the ancient centers for medical training.)[5369] Asclepius was known and celebrated in Ephesus (e.g., I. Eph. 105, 1253–54), though not in any unique way.[5370] A closer comparison, however, is to the popularity of individuals known for healing potency.[5371] Some Western NT scholars have treated these descriptions with embarrassment, but other historians of antiquity (who do not expect Luke or Paul to conform to modern Western expectations) find them less disconcerting.[5372]

(1) Extraordinary Miracles (19:11–12)

The expression “extraordinary miracles” appears elsewhere in antiquity for “unusual” (but not necessarily unique) miracles;[5373] Luke presumably offers in Acts 19:12 the most noteworthy examples. “Through the hands of Paul” (cf. 14:3) could be Semitic idiom for the agency of Paul or could allude to his healing through laying on hands (28:8), but in 19:12, healings begin to take place even without his direct touch.[5374]

The level of Paul’s miracles here appears to exceed earlier, more isolated occasions (e.g., 13:11; 14:10). Though it is possible that Luke portrays Paul as working the same level of miracles from the start (cf. the open-ended summary of 14:3), this passage seems to recall the level of miracle working attested among the Jerusalem apostles earlier (5:12–16). If the disciples in the Gospel of Luke grew in faith (Luke 9:40–41; cf. 8:25; 17:5–10), it is possible that Luke portrays Paul as doing so as well, just as he seems to have grown in his comfort in the role of a popular sage (cf. 17:22–31; 24:24–26; 26:24). What is clearest is that Luke emphasizes that Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, worked miracles no less spectacular than those by the group of Jerusalem apostles.

Luke’s report of Paul’s miracles comports with Paul’s own claims, but it also serves Luke’s narrative purposes. That Paul historically believed in ongoing miracles in the church (1 Cor 1:22; 12:10; Gal 3:5) and was effective in performing them (2 Cor 12:12; Rom 15:19; cf. 1 Cor 12:28, 29) in many locations other than Ephesus is clear from his writings. For Paul, apostolic ministry should be attested by signs and miracles (2 Cor 12:12). While Luke’s claim of miraculous activity surrounding Paul therefore likely reflects solid tradition, however, Luke makes good use of it here. That healing and deliverance occur through indirect contact with Peter (Acts 5:15) and Paul (19:12) parallels both of them to Jesus (Luke 8:44).[5375] In each case, such miracles also lead to increased notoriety and demand (Acts 5:16; 19:17–20).[5376]

Unquestionably, such miracles would have been appreciated. The health needs in Ephesus, as in other cities, would have been phenomenal. Wherever sufficient evidence remains to examine, “for all cities up to the 1870s . . . the death rates of those born in the city exceeded their birth rates.”[5377] Whereas diseases such as cholera and smallpox die out in towns below thirty thousand, they spread in major urban areas; many rats would also be in the cities (though some cats might have been available to control them).[5378] This health situation became especially dangerous for large commercial cities linked by trade, as Ephesus was.[5379] In famines (an extreme situation not in view here), people usually died not of starvation but of disease, to which their malnourished bodies readily succumbed.[5380] Ephesus was fairly prosperous (see comment on Acts 18:19), but any known means of recovery would be welcome.

(2) Use of Cloths (19:12)

Items of Paul’s apparel here mediate divine power for cures.[5381] Those who anointed wounds with oil could use a rag to do so, except on the Sabbath,[5382] but cloths had no specifically “medical” use and certainly no specifically thaumaturgic function.[5383] The term σουδάριον (a loanword from the Latin sudarium) referred to a cloth used for the face (e.g., John 11:44; 20:7), naturally often used to wipe away perspiration.[5384] Given the Latin origin of both terms for cloths here, many (perhaps most) commentators have argued that Luke refers to Paul’s work aprons and sweat cloths.[5385] Some ancient commentators may have understood the text similarly.[5386] The use of Paul’s sweat rags would demonstrate people’s desperation and belief that even the most despised objects associated with Paul were potent. Another plausible suggestion is that this is Paul’s orator’s garment used, not in his workshop (cf. Acts 18:3; 20:34), but in his school (19:9);[5387] there is supporting evidence, although there are also some potential problems with this view.[5388]

If this passage refers to Paul’s sweat rags (as opposed to his teaching uniform), people may have taken them without Paul’s knowledge,[5389] just as those seeking healing by indirect association with God’s agents acted without the agents’ knowledge in Luke 8:44 and Acts 5:15. Given the limitations of time, however, it is not impossible that Paul allowed such proxies if he knew of them, provided the service was offered in Jesus’s name (Acts 19:13). Yet the idea that they acted without his direct approval, given Luke’s parallel with Jesus, might be precisely the point; Luke may emphasize the activity of the Spirit’s present power even beyond the activity of the Spirit’s agents.[5390] In either case, we do know that some sought to exploit the reputation of Paul’s agency for Jesus in order to accomplish miracles without his knowledge (19:13).

Some scholars find magical associations in the description here.[5391] Certainly many believed that the touch of special individuals or anything in contact with them exercised thaumaturgic power (see discussion at Acts 5:15).[5392] Although miracle working belonged to Paul’s biblical tradition (e.g., Exod 4:6–9, 17;[5393] 1 Kgs 17–19; 2 Kgs 1–2; 4–7), it was also a relevant means to contextualize the true God’s power for the Greco-Roman world.[5394] Many people believed in healing by touching something that had come into association with supernatural power; earlier Romans, for example, brought fever remedies to their shrines to Fever before applying them to the afflicted (Val. Max. 2.5.6); later rabbis forbade laying a scroll or phylactery on a person to seek recovery on the Sabbath (y. Šabb. 6:3, §7).[5395] Later Egyptian Christians spread the gospel by following expectations for Egyptian holy men, eventually supplanting the latter.[5396] Although Luke includes an antimagical apologetic and hence shares with many others hostility toward magic (see Acts 13:8; comment at Acts 8:9–11), the boundaries may have seemed thinner to those on the verge of popular paganism, and Luke does not deny the value of divine signs revealing truth where unbelievers were looking (cf. Matt 2:1–2). The approaching of some to Paul with what may have been viewed by others as semimagical expectations (cf. Luke 8:44) is probably, however, why Luke immediately emphasizes the distinction between Paul’s ministry, blessed by God, and the magic of some of his contemporaries (Acts 19:13–19).

Luke, however, would not view such phenomena as magical, and thus he directly repudiates potential magical associations in the following context. Touching an object associated with a healer also proves efficacious in the pre-Lukan Gospel tradition (Mark 5:27–28; 6:56), though its efficacy is specifically attributed to faith (5:34), which might be implied for those seeking healing among Christ’s agents (cf. Acts 5:16; 19:17). For Luke it is not “relics” per se but God who is performing miracles (19:11). The idea is not foreign to OT prophetic tradition (Exod 7:20; Num 17:5–10; 2 Kgs 4:29; 13:21; cf. Jos. Ant. 8.353–54)[5397] and is implied in a broader manner in Levitical codes of clean and unclean.

The context in Luke’s first account, in his Gospel, also implies the idea of communicating ritual impurity through touch (Luke 8:43–44, 47 taken together with Lev 15:25–27; cf. Lev 15:19–24),[5398] which is reversed by a transfer of superior power (Luke 8:46).[5399] For Luke, long-distance healings reveal special power (Luke 7:7–10),[5400] connect Paul with his predecessors, and might even imply continuing blessing on Paul’s ministry and circle after his death (cf. 2 Kgs 13:21), an idea probably relevant to Luke’s audience.

(3) Exorcisms in Ephesus (19:12)

Public exorcisms proved strategic in the expansion of Christianity in the Roman Empire in subsequent centuries.[5401] See the lengthy excursus on demons and spirit possession at Acts 16:16–18, especially section 5, “Exorcism.” It was believed that Solomon provided incantations for illnesses and strategies for exorcism (Jos. Ant. 8.45–49); one Jewish exorcist cast out demons by citing Solomon’s name and using his incantations (8.47).[5402] Probably Sceva’s sons and others (19:13–14) try to use Jesus’s and Paul’s name the same way. Luke appears to distinguish between sickness and demonization here.[5403] On the relationship between the two in some ancient sources, see the excursus on demons and spirit possession at Acts 16:16–18.

Although Ephesus is hardly the only location where Luke reports demonic activity or exorcisms, it may be no coincidence that it features heavily in his account here (Acts 19:12–16). Philostratus later reports a significant encounter between his hero Apollonius and a demon here, although this encounter was hardly an exorcism. Apollonius bade the people of the city to stone a supposedly blind beggar to death; the carcass became a huge dog, which everyone then realized was a daimon (Vit. Apoll. 4.10).[5404] Although the term δαίμων did not regularly carry the negative connotations assigned to it in the NT,[5405] it might be pertinent that we know of an altar in Ephesus dedicated to both Artemis Savior (cf. Acts 19:24–27) and “the good Daimon” (ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος, I. Eph. 1255). A later Ephesian source also reports Jesus’s power to expel “unclean spirits and demons” (I. Eph. 46.3–4).

Although Paul’s letters do not specify that his signs (2 Cor 12:12) included exorcisms,[5406] Luke’s testimony to this effect is consonant with both Paul’s summary that he performed signs and his belief in demonic activity among pagans (1 Cor 10:20).

Luke’s term ἀπαλλάσσω (Acts 19:12) appears frequently in medical writers[5407] but is by no means limited to them; Luke himself uses it in nonmedical ways (Luke 12:58; so also Heb 2:15 and most of the fifteen uses in the LXX).[5408]

III. MAGIC INFERIOR TO PAUL’S SIGNS (19:13–20)

In Acts 19:13–20, Luke emphasizes at length that magic is inferior to Paul’s signs (19:11–12). Lest any hearer of 19:11–12 suppose that Paul was a mere magician, 19:13–19 clarifies that Paul’s ministry was antithetical to magic and the spirits on which it depended (see discussion of Luke’s antimagical apologetic at Acts 8:9–11). Magicians practiced exorcism by invoking the names of a variety of higher spirits, and they did so secretly; by contrast, the earliest recorded Christians viewed Jesus’s name as “uniquely efficacious,” and they acted publicly.[5409]

Ephesus was notable for its reputed trade in magic spells (see discussion at 19:13). Not surprisingly in a city known for magic but especially for its cult of Artemis, magic may sometimes be linked with her cult there,[5410] but usually they are separate issues. As Luke drew on Athens’s reputation for philosophy in 17:18–34, he will draw on both aspects of Ephesus’s reputation in his account of Paul’s ministry here; additionally, the sophistic and philosophic part of the city’s reputation likely appears in 19:9.

(1) Exorcists versus Jesus’s Name (19:13–16)

In 19:13–16, Sceva’s sons try to use Jesus’s name as a magical formula, the way they think Paul did, and discover that this name cannot be manipulated like other names. Jesus’s name is not that of a mere spirit but the name of “the Lord” (19:17), and these exorcists who do not obey him lack authorization to use his name.[5411]

SATAN CANNOT CAST OUT SATAN (19:13–16)

This passage illustrates a theology of power encounter earlier borrowed from Q in Luke 11:15–26. Sceva’s sons apparently assumed that Paul acted by something akin to magic, which they could duplicate. A similar misunderstanding of magical exorcism had also followed Jesus’s ministry, as Luke notes (11:15).[5412] Luke and early Christians were well aware of exorcists outside their own ranks, but such exorcism would prove inadequate (11:19) unless it was antithetical to Satan’s kingdom (11:18) and advanced God’s kingdom (11:20). Indeed, Jesus cast out demons by God’s “finger” (11:20)—possibly recalling the admission of Pharaoh’s magicians that they could not match the true demonstrations of God’s power through Moses (the finger of God in Exod 8:19 [MT, 8:15 LXX]).[5413] Likewise, the magical exorcists here cannot compete with Jesus or his agent Paul.

Satan does not genuinely cast out Satan (Luke 11:17–19); only in the name of one stronger than Satan can one free his possessions (cf. 11:21–22), and not everyone has the right to use that name (11:23). Unless transformed by God’s kingdom,[5414] the person exorcised risked even severer repossession, so that others’ exorcism (cf. 11:19) would ultimately result in more harm than good (11:24–26).[5415] Christian exorcism had to proceed on a higher level than the strategic barter between evil forces of varying levels of power in Satan’s kingdom.[5416] Jesus’s followers needed no special training, but they needed to use his name in faith (9:49–50).[5417]

EXORCISM, MAGIC, AND EPHESUS (19:13)

It is often argued that Ephesus was well known for its magical practices.[5418] Scholars have long argued that ancients sometimes labeled rolls of such incantations Ἐφέσια γράμματα—that is, “Ephesian writings.”[5419] The designation alone would link Ephesus with magic for some ancient hearers; it applied more specifically to six special magical terms that could be spoken as charms or inscribed in amulets.[5420] As noted above, it would not be surprising if, in a city known for magic but especially for its cult of Artemis, magic is sometimes linked with her cult there,[5421] though this has been debated.[5422]

Exorcism was sometimes linked with magic, although not always;[5423] magical exorcism was often associated with Egypt but also with Jewish exorcists.[5424] In one fictitious work, we also have, as noted above, a later account of an alleged exorcism in Ephesus (of sorts; after the apparently human demon was stoned to death, it reverted to the shape of a giant dog, Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.10).

It is not clear, however, that the exorcists addressed here were from Ephesus; that they traveled around (περιέρχομαι) indicates that they were itinerants,[5425] though it does not specify the range of their travels. Some itinerants were known to be charlatans.[5426] If Sceva’s “sons” were foreign, this could have augmented the aura of mystery and proved good for their business; esoteric knowledge from Eastern cultures was sometimes considered particularly efficacious, though Egypt was counted a special source for magic.[5427]

That they were ethnically Jewish says nothing about their relationship with the synagogue in Acts 19:9, but for Luke’s audience, it might confirm the powerlessness of Ephesian Judaism compared with Paul, the true preacher of Jewish monotheism (cf. 19:26, 33). That all the major magical figures in Acts are Jewish or (apparently) Samaritan (8:9–11; 13:6–8; and here) could help counter Jewish accusations that Christian signs represent sorcery. “By whom,” Jesus asks in Luke’s Gospel, “do your own sons cast them out?” (Luke 11:19; Q material also found in Matt 12:27). As noted earlier (see comment on Acts 8:11; 13:6), Jewish involvement in magic was widely known in the Gentile world (though not all Jews approved of it).[5428] Some Jewish pietists, like some other people, used incantations to ward off demons (e.g., 4Q560).

NAMES IN EXORCISM (19:13)

Ancients used various means of exorcism (see full discussion in the excursus on demons and spirit possession at Acts 16:16–18, esp. sect. 5, “Exorcism”). One popular method of exorcising or controlling spirits was to invoke the spirit by name or to invoke a more powerful spirit to expel or control the lower spirit.[5429] Invoking more powerful spirits against lower ones appears in ancient Near Eastern sources from at least 2100 B.C.E. forward.[5430]

Luke himself is surely aware of the use of names in exorcism and magic (cf. Luke 8:30);[5431] this was common knowledge, not requiring any specialized training in magic.[5432] A magical text advises the practitioner to ask the appearing deity its name (PGM 1.160–61);[5433] if it cooperates (1.167), then it will perform magic for the invoker (1.171–92).[5434] One who wished to command a deity needed to simply invoke the greatest name (in this case, OUPHŌR), and the deity would obey (12.316). Magical texts frequently invoke Jewish angels.[5435] A third-century Jewish text highlights the importance of asking demons their names.[5436] Access to secret names functioned as passports for heavenly visions in later Jewish mystic and gnostic texts; this too reflects magical influence.[5437]

Invoking even deities’ names in magic may have been most popular, especially initially, in Jewish circles invoking the divine name,[5438] but it was hardly limited to them. A mid-first-century Roman writer writes of a witch practicing name invocation on deities of the underworld and threatening to use their real names if they failed to comply (Lucan C.W. 6.732–34).

Because the God of Israel had a sacred name that was effectively secret because publicly unpronounced (see comment on Acts 2:21),[5439] it would be considered especially powerful.[5440] (Thus, for example, one kept secret the names of the gods of the Samothracian Mysteries.)[5441] A tradition existed that Rome had a “secret” name known only to priests lest its gods be enticed away by use of their real names;[5442] Romans also regarded “unknown gods” as especially powerful.[5443] Romans kept the name of their tutelary deity secret to keep others from luring their deity away from them as they invoked other peoples’ tutelary deities away from them.[5444]

YHWH’s name sometimes appears in magical texts,[5445] though some of the supposed permutations of YHWH cited today may have represented simply magical use of the seven vowels, used in Egyptian hymns to deities.[5446] Later Aramaic incantation bowls can invoke the ineffable name against demons.[5447] Gentiles also used Jewish and Christian divine names;[5448] thus we have texts that address thoroughly pagan deities alongside transliterated Hebrew divine names and those of angels (e.g., PGM 3.145–50).[5449] Gentile practices also affected Jews; Jewish adjurations in Hekhalot texts resemble Greco-Egyptian adjurations.[5450]

The exorcists’ use of ὁρκίζω and similar oath formulas would be familiar as exorcistic language, as Luke might infer from the Jesus tradition (Mark 5:7, though there it is the spirits that employ it).[5451] Paul used Jesus’s name in exorcism without magical incantations (e.g., Acts 16:18; cf. 4:30), but Jesus’s name grew increasingly popular in magical texts in subsequent centuries.[5452] Origen counters Celsus’s charge that Christians worked miracles by magical incantations invoking demons: Christ’s coming has actually weakened occult power. Further, Origen concedes that even “bad men” expel demons by using Jesus’s name, but Jesus’s warning that such things would happen rules out his involvement in sorcery.[5453] Exorcists were pragmatic, and both pagans and Christians eventually mixed Jesus’s name with traditional formulas;[5454] it is doubtful that Luke would have approved.[5455] More positively, rabbinic literature indicates that Jesus’s Jewish followers continued to use his name for healings, though most rabbinic leaders disapproved.[5456]

SCEVA’S SEVEN SONS (19:14)

Whether Sceva’s sons constituted the entire group of exorcists in 19:13 or were simply its most notable examples for Luke’s purpose could be debated (though clearly those invoking Jesus’s name were a subgroup of the larger category of Jewish exorcists).

“Scaeva” is a Latin cognomen;[5457] although some members of Jerusalem’s priestly aristocracy may have been Roman citizens (even equestrians), Latin names would be more common in the Diaspora, especially in the West.[5458] A number of Ephesian Jews, and Jews of some other cities in the region, were Roman citizens (Jos. Ant. 14.228).[5459] If Sceva headed a guild of exorcists, they might not be his “sons” literally, at least not all of them (cf. esp. Luke 11:19);[5460] their relationship might also be fictitious if Sceva’s (and hence their) priesthood was.[5461] Roman priesthoods, in contrast to those in the Greek East, formed colleges or brotherhoods of priests.[5462] The number “seven” might be a special number (as in Acts 19:7), which the exorcists chose for their guild because it was a significant number in antiquity (even in magic);[5463] see comment on Acts 6:3. The number could just as easily be coincidence (had it been six or eight, commentators might still have been tempted to uncover significance!);[5464] but the number is significant in 6:3, and Luke is more explicit here than in 20:4.

The claim that Sceva was a “high priest” strikes many commentators as suspicious. Luke, like other writers, uses the term to refer to members of the priestly aristocracy[5465] (see comment on Acts 4:6); on the narrative level, this claim would serve Luke’s purpose by reflecting badly on the priestly aristocracy that opposed Jesus and his movement in Jerusalem.[5466] Many members of Jewish priestly families in the Diaspora retained their title,[5467] though in the Diaspora the full title, “high priest” (ἀρχιερεύς), applies only to a pagan office in pagan inscriptions.[5468] Many scholars suggest that these exorcists might have exploited the claim to high priesthood purely fictitiously to advance their own reputation.[5469] This might well be the case with the Jewish “high priestess” mentioned by Juvenal (Sat. 6.544), although the title may simply reflect Juvenal’s ignorance (since she is likely fictitious, a representative character).[5470] Since the exorcists were not from Ephesus originally, Ephesians would not be able to ascertain easily the veracity of their claim.[5471]

Whether or not the exorcists genuinely belonged to the high-priestly family, the claim would have suited their alleged role. The ancient Mediterranean world knew many mendicant priests, some of whom earned their living by entertaining spectators.[5472] Egyptian priests[5473] had an especially firm command of magical practices,[5474] and during the Roman Empire, as temple priesthoods declined, more of them became itinerant or freelance ritual experts. Their priestly title increased their exotic status as magicians abroad.[5475] “High priests” held a highly respected role in Ephesus.[5476] Members of the Jerusalem priesthood might further claim special knowledge of the highest God’s secret name (on the “Most High” God, see comment on Acts 16:18). We can well imagine such Jewish “high priests” as analogous to some itinerant Gentile fortune-tellers of this period (e.g., those ridiculed in Juv. Sat. 6.548–64) or later centuries, or recalling again Juvenal’s xenophobic depiction of a Jewish “high priestess . . . , a trusty go-between of the highest heaven” (Sat. 6.544–45): she obtains less money than a spokesperson for Isis, “for a Jew will tell you dreams of any kind you please for the minutest of coins” (6.546–47 [LCL, 127]).

THE DEMON’S RETORT (19:15)

Some scholars think that this demon practices the widely valued Greek practice of the witty retort.[5477] Exorcists typically asked a demon’s name before driving it out; here, by contrast, the demon ironically demands their name and drives them out.[5478]

The spirit’s words contain another irony. Subdued by magic, spirits sometimes revealed supernaturally obtained information to their inquirers.[5479] Here, by contrast, we find an “adversative oracle,” a form that parodies a “recognition oracle”:[5480] instead of speaking well of inquirers, the spirit denies knowledge of them, quite probably in an insulting manner. To deny knowing a person or where the person was from constituted an insult and a repudiation of any relationship (cf. Luke 13:25).[5481] Later Jewish traditions could portray destructive forces as knowing about, yet not having met, some famous people. Thus destruction or Gehinnom declared that they had heard Moses’s name but never met him.[5482] The present statement more closely resembles another later Jewish story, however, where Beelzebul insultingly counters Solomon’s summons by denying any knowledge of him, until Solomon’s authority is revealed by his ring.[5483]

By its parallel with demons recognizing Jesus’s identity in the Gospel and Paul’s in Acts 16:17,[5484] the passage both maintains a consistent perspective on the demonic world’s supernatural access to knowledge and testifies that that sphere was well aware of the agents of the kingdom. Jesus and Paul might remain obscure and insignificant to many political entities, but they were quite well known in the “spiritual” world where dramatic effects of their ministries occurred first.

CASTING OUT THE EXORCISTS (19:16)

The exorcists who try to use Christ’s name without genuine authorization are defeated.[5485] The informed reader approaches this text in light of the rest of the context of Luke-Acts. Those lacking proper faith cannot cast out demons (Luke 9:40–41); inadequate exorcisms, in the end, do more harm than good (11:19, 26). But whereas demons might normally cooperate with exorcists for strategic reasons, Satan’s kingdom is here divided, in a sense (cf. 11:17–18), because of the invasion of God’s kingdom (11:20).[5486] Thus it is hardly surprising that here the exorcists, rather than the demon, are cast out! Demons caused a demoniac to go naked in 8:27[5487] and also gave him supernatural strength (8:29);[5488] here the demon may provide supernatural strength, but it is the exorcists whom he strips (the sort of subtle reversal Luke also observes elsewhere, as in Acts 7:58).[5489] (Possibly a further irony here, as in the Jewish foils for Paul’s monotheistic preaching in 19:33–34, is the Jewish, and hence supposedly monotheistic, identity of the magical exorcists [cf. 8:9; esp. 13:6]. In the Gospel, Jesus casts out a demon in a religious place, a synagogue [Luke 4:33–35], immediately after the narration of Jesus being cast out of a synagogue and town [4:28–29], which in turn followed Jesus’s testing by the devil [4:2–13].)

Unusual demonstrations, such as overturning water, sometimes confirmed the veracity of ancient exorcisms;[5490] here a violent act confirms the demon’s refusal to leave. (In contrast to this passage, the violent acts of the demonized were sometimes against themselves, as Luke knew.[5491] But violent acts were not limited to the demonized themselves.)[5492] Although the paragraph might seem to end with the demon’s victory, it triumphs only over the attempted exorcists; the demon essentially admits that it would submit to Jesus and Paul.[5493] In the long run, even this confession brings Jesus’s greater glory in a city being exposed to him (19:17–20).

The term (ἐφάλλομαι) for the demoniac’s “springing upon” the exorcists often carries a hostile sense of assailing, as here.[5494] That spirit possession could generate strength and violence would be known to Luke’s audience (Luke 8:29).[5495] Later tradition speaks of a demon threatening to attack an exorcist but restrained by God’s authorization of the exorcist.[5496] Anthropological studies have demonstrated such phenomena associated with spirit possession in a variety of genetically diverse cultures[5497] (e.g., among traditional religions on Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska).[5498] (The fear that possessing spirits can be transferred to exorcists or bystanders, however, is not relevant here; it is “the person” who jumps on them, not the spirit.)[5499]

Since Luke mentions “seven” sons of Sceva in Acts 19:14,[5500] some commentators have found puzzling the mention of “both” (ἀμφοτέρων) suffering here. It is possible that the seven exorcists did not all work in concert at the same site; Luke’s usual abbreviation technique may have simply omitted this explanation. It is also possible that one or two exorcists in a group would take the lead and that Luke assumed his audience’s knowledge of this. It should also be noted, however, that later Greek uses this term for “all,” a usage with which Luke is evidently familiar (23:8).[5501]

(2) Jesus’s Triumph over Magic (19:17–20)

The climax of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus is the response to Sceva’s sons, framed by the spreading message of the Lord (19:17, 20). Instead of Sceva’s sons exploiting Jesus’s name for magic, the incident of their expulsion (19:13–16) demonstrates the supremacy of Jesus’s name and that only his genuine agents are authorized to use it.

This section about Paul’s signs in Ephesus (19:11–20) concludes like the preceding one about Paul’s intellectual ministry (19:8–10): the Lord’s message spread through the entire province of Asia (19:10) and now spreads more deeply. After his summary in 19:17, Luke provides the most noteworthy example of the word’s effect (19:18–19) and then returns to the point: as in 19:10, the Lord’s message grew (19:20).

HONORING JESUS’S NAME (19:17)

That the message spread among both Jews and Greeks (19:17) fits Luke’s ideal pattern (14:1; 18:4; 20:21; cf. Rom 3:9; 1 Cor 1:22, 24; 10:32; 12:13) as well as what we can reconstruct of Asian churches from Paul’s (or on more common views, his follower’s) letter traditionally called Ephesians. It also provides a partial inclusio with Acts 19:10 (completed in 19:20). Fear falling on a crowd recalls the ministries of Jesus (Luke 7:16) and Peter (Acts 5:11, 13).[5502]

If word of the confrontation spread, it probably did so for one of two reasons. Perhaps there were bystanders, or Sceva’s sons had invited witnesses to observe their feat. Alternatively, perhaps at least some of these exorcists afterward recognized that Paul’s exorcistic “competence” was in a league quite different from their own or that Jesus’s name functioned differently from what they expected. Just as the success of Solomon’s name in exorcism caused his name to be honored (Jos. Ant. 8.49), so here the name of Jesus, which is uniquely successful and cannot be manipulated by those without divine authorization to use it (cf., e.g., Acts 3:6, 16), is glorified.

Jesus’s “name” that was being magnified[5503] refers to his honor (cf. Jesus’s name in Acts 5:41; 15:26; 21:13), as “name” often did (especially with reference to God’s name, 2 Sam 7:26; cf. Pss 34:3; 69:30).[5504] Yet in this context it is undoubtedly also connected to the use of Jesus’s name in 19:13; Jesus was no mere spirit whose name could be invoked and controlled magically for the magicians’ will. It may be no coincidence that in a letter Paul[5505] later wrote to believers in Asia, including Ephesus,[5506] he notes that Jesus’s name is above the name of every spirit that is invoked (Eph 1:21).

The impressiveness of Paul’s message is not difficult to fathom here. Just as Paul’s arguments outstripped the philosophers of Athens, his power is revealed to be greater than the magic most respected in Ephesus. This impressiveness fits biblical models. Moses had outdone Pharaoh’s magicians (Exod 7:10–12; 8:18–19; 9:11); Joseph (Gen 41:8) and Daniel (Dan 2:27–28; 4:7–9, 19–28; 5:8, 17–28) had outdone other dream interpreters. (Nor is the impressiveness surprising from a sociological standpoint. Missiologists have often reported people movements or mass conversions after “power encounters,” successful confrontations with indigenous spiritual expectations.)[5507]

CONFESSING SECRETS OPENLY (19:18)

The most dramatic example of conversion from magic occurs among those already converted to Christian faith (the perfect tense πεπιστευκότων indicates that they had begun and continued to believe).[5508] Perhaps they resemble Simon, who “believed” but was in danger of failing to persevere because he retained his magical worldview (Acts 8:19–23).[5509] Whether the practitioners of magic who destroyed their books in 19:19 should be identified with the believers in 19:18 is uncertain, but the use of πραξάντων (19:19) so soon after its cognate noun (19:18) probably suggests that the believers of 19:18 were confessing some involvement with magic, and not simply sins in general.[5510]

In view of his larger apologetic, Luke’s frank admission that new converts required further conviction is not likely his invention. Although the admission may surprise us,[5511] it appears consonant with the adoption of new religion in most cultures. When Christianity first came to Egypt, for example, it viewed spirits as either wholly benevolent or malevolent, against the more ambiguous use of spirits in Egyptian tradition. In the fourth century, however, the rapid influx of many partially assimilated Christians brought the traditional ambiguity into Christian practice, so that Athanasius complained in 370 C.E. that people were seeking oracular counsel from spirits previously exorcised at the shrines of martyrs.[5512] Dependence on traditional rituals, including curses and amulets for protection from curses, can remain quite popular among first- and second-generation converts to Christianity, especially in private.[5513] The third-century Testament of Solomon, if not a Christian work, contains Christian interpolations showing its use by Christians. In either case (probably the latter), it seems to be written by someone who knows more about magic than about some other elements of Jewish tradition.[5514]

In many newly evangelized regions in more recent history, locals continued to depend on local shamans while outwardly practicing Christianity,[5515] because the theological system of Christianity that the Western missionaries taught was often void of power for supernatural activities, in contrast to local pre-Christian concerns.[5516] Once locals reappropriated a Christian conception of signs and wonders, indigenous Christianity often flourished, and often at the expense of its local competitors. The relative weakness of supernatural engagement in Western Christianity may stem as much from the Enlightenment’s non-Christian bulwark against supernaturalism as from traditional Western Protestant objections to supernaturalism. The first Christian leaders’ views, extant in our NT, accepted magic’s frequent efficacy but opposed its use, as did many other Jews.[5517]

Some scholars have argued that the new converts’ “confessing” and “announcing” their “deeds” (πράξεις) refers to divulging their spells (on the spells, see 19:19). None of the terms bears an exclusively magical meaning, but in a magical context such as the present one, they might well bear a magical sense (cf. πράξεις in PGM 1.276; 4.159, 1227).[5518] In the immediate context, a form of the cognate verb πράσσω[5519] in Acts 19:19 is used for “practicing” magic.[5520] Moreover, spells were to be kept secret, and “divulging” them stripped them of their power.[5521] By “confessing” their spells, the converts would thus be negating the formulas and relinquishing any dependence on them.[5522]

As promising as this interpretation appears, it is not certain; none of these terms usually bears such a restrictive meaning, or bears such a sense anywhere else in the NT, with the exception of the cognate verb in 19:19. Even if the context grants πράξεις a technical sense, the same can be argued only with some difficulty for the verbs, on which the case for “divulging” spells would rest. Ἐξομολογέω can refer more generally to “confessing” any sins, as Luke will know from the gospel tradition (Mark 1:5; cf. 1 John 1:9).[5523] In this case, they are confessing that they were wrong to follow magic, not divulging spells that they now regard as worthless whether divulged or not. But since magic was done in secret, even openly confessing their practices constitutes a significant repudiation of such practices.

On the basis of later church practice, some scholars believe that the converts confessed their sin in the churches;[5524] the alternative would be that they were “coming” where “many brought” their magic books—that is, in public (Acts 19:19). But Luke’s report is so condensed that the events might not be simultaneous, despite their association; the imperfect verb for “coming” (associated with two present participles) could suggest a continuing action of public repentance whereas the participle συνενέγκαντες, “bringing,” is aorist, possibly suggesting a single event. If the venue remains obscure, the actions are nevertheless fairly clear. Often people were ashamed to “confess” their wrongdoing;[5525] but for confession of sin in traditional Jewish understanding (which greatly informed early Christian usage), see comment on Acts 7:60 (especially under “Confessing Others’ Sins”).[5526]

BURNING THE MAGIC BOOKS (19:19)

Whether the practitioners of magic who destroyed their books in 19:19 should be identified with the believers in 19:18 is uncertain.[5527] Witherington suggests that lower-status, poorer Christians confessed their practices whereas wealthier Christians, who could own their own magic books (worth fifty thousand silver pieces) brought their books for burning.[5528] This is possible;[5529] grammatically, however, nothing indicates the degree of overlap between the two groups.[5530] Luke’s point is not to provide us all the details but to emphasize the magnitude of turning to God that was involved in these events, despite Paul’s later troubles in Ephesus (19:23–40).

Scholars have long noted the reputation of Ephesian magic suggested by the so-called Ἐφέσια γράμματα—that is, “Ephesian writings” or “Ephesian letters.”[5531] Many have applied the term to rolls of magical formulas.[5532] More recent scholarship, however, applies the designation more specifically to six special magical terms that could be spoken as charms or inscribed on leather and worn as amulets.[5533] (People typically wore amulets on a chain or cord around the neck, but they could also inscribe the terms on rings or bracelets or attach them to buildings.[5534] Amulets often contained voces magicae, meaningless strings of letters, or Egyptian or Jewish divine names.)[5535] These charms were used in exorcism or as magical prophylaxis.[5536] These Ephesian letters are attested as early as the fourth century B.C.E. (as far away as Crete) and were considered particularly efficacious; one Ephesian wrestler won repeatedly by wearing them on his ankles, but he lost repeatedly once they were discovered and removed.[5537] Their name does not suggest an exclusive association with Ephesus but, reportedly, derives from their being found on Artemis’s statue in Ephesus.[5538]

The magical books burned here thus were not technically “Ephesian writings” themselves (too small to constitute “books” [τὰς βίβλους] by themselves), but they very likely contained them as well as other incantation material.[5539] Magical papyri contain many of the same curse formulae found in defixiones, lead tablets inscribed with curses intended to harm others.[5540] Diaspora Jews sometimes warned against magic books: “Make no potions, keep away from magical books [μαγικῶν βίβλων]” (Ps.-Phoc. 149).[5541] Such magic books may resemble collections that have survived (such as in PGM).[5542]

Shorter charms were common; we may sample here a later Jewish charm:[5543]

For those possessed by daemons, an approved charm by Pibechis. Take oil made from unripe olives, together with the plant mastigia and lotus pith, and boil it with marjoram (very colourless), saying: “Jōēl, Ōssarthiōmi, Emōri, Theōchipsoith, Sithemeōch, Sōthē, Jōē, Mimipsōthiōōph, Phersōthi AEĒIOYŌ Jōē, Eōchariphtha: come out of such an one (and other usual formulae).” But write this phylactery upon a little sheet of tin: “Jaēō, Abraōthiōch, Phtha, Mesenpsinaō, Pheōch, Jaēō, Charsōc,” and hang it round the sufferer: it is of every daemon a thing to be trembled at, which he fears. Standing opposite, adjure him. The adjuration is this, “I adjure thee by the god of the Hebrews . . .”[5544]

Some terms were gibberish; others reflected dependence on sacred or esoteric languages, such as Hebrew or Egyptian. The characters of Egyptian hieroglyphs, considered sacred but often no longer intelligible, were often recycled for spells.[5545] Although spells and collections became dominant in the third century C.E. and later, we know numerous spells from the first century or earlier.[5546] Sacred books of pagan religion were also widespread,[5547] though it is not clear whether the earliest Christians would have regarded such works as similarly dangerous.

The term περίεργος would not suggest magical associations in ordinary contexts (1 Tim 5:13; LSJ), but this meaning is common enough in magical settings to indicate this sense in a magical context such as the present one.[5548]

Works could be suppressed without being burned. In 213 B.C.E., Romans suppressed foreign cults, simply confiscating their books of prophecies, prayers, and sacrificial rituals (Livy 25.1.11–12). Spartans likewise banished a poet’s works because they thought such works would damage children’s character (Val. Max. 6.3.ext. 1). A fictitious convert to Judaism ground up her idols (Jos. Asen. 10:12/13).

But burning objects to repudiate them had a venerable history,[5549] including in Jewish circles. Israelites sometimes burned idols or items associated with them (Deut 7:5, 25; 12:3; 2 Kgs 10:26; 23:6; 1 Chr 14:12; cf. Josh 6:24; 7:15, 25); strict Jewish pietists apparently preserved this ideal.[5550] In one story, the Israelites burned some idolaters but set aside the idolatrous books (which would not burn naturally), and God consumed them with lightning (L.A.B. 26:3).[5551] One Judahite king burned Jeremiah’s scroll of prophecy to suppress his prophecy (Jer 36:23), though this may have simply been the most convenient way to destroy it (36:22; there is no thought of publicly repudiating it); Israel’s enemies later sought to capture and burn its Torah scrolls (1 Macc 1:56; cf. Jos. War 2.229).

Seneca the Elder complains that a new punishment originated in the first century B.C.E. with the burning of Titus Labienus’s books: “It was an unheard of novelty that punishment should be exacted from literature” (Controv. 10.pref. 5).[5552] But this practice was not entirely new, nor did it remain novel.[5553] Some burned the works of a philosopher because he was an agnostic;[5554] senators under Tiberius ordered burned the books of one accused of favoring the republic;[5555] Nero ordered burned the books of one accused of libeling senators;[5556] Romans also burned books considered subversive to traditional Roman religion.[5557] During Domitian’s reign of terror, the senate ordered a man’s books burned, though his wife salvaged them (Pliny Ep. 7.19.6). Catullus even hopes facetiously for bad poetry to be burned (Carm. 36.6–8, 18–20).[5558] Later Christian emperors engaged in this practice against anti-Christian writings.[5559] In Acts 19, however, no censors seize and destroy others’ works (“as . . . in virtually all the accounts from the Graeco-Roman period”), but the owners voluntarily destroy their own books “at great personal loss.”[5560] Repudiation by burning could extend also to other papers,[5561] artistic representations of defeats,[5562] or an enemy’s property.[5563]

Most estimates of the books’ price[5564] cannot account for the difference in buying power of currency in antiquity, but estimates such as fifty thousand days’ wages for an average worker[5565] appear to come closer to the mark in real value.[5566] The cost of the books recalls the money that could be made in magic and religion, which Luke critiques (see comment on Acts 8:20; cf. Luke 12:13–48, esp. 12:41), often by mentioning “silver,” as here (Luke 9:3; 22:5; Acts 3:6; 8:20; 20:33). It also fits Luke’s emphasis on the secondary value of money and on the gospel’s impact on entrenched pagan economic interests (Acts 16:19; 19:25; cf. 24:26). The sacrifice of these converts truly devoted to the living God also contrasts starkly with the cynical business calculations of the silver workers in 19:25, to which Luke may draw attention by mentioning “silver” in both places.[5567] The contrast with the earlier use of wealth in Acts is also instructive: Christians might sell most kinds of possessions to care for the needy (2:45; 4:34), but cursed possessions, with clearly pagan associations, were under the ban and to be destroyed (Deut 7:26; 13:17; Josh 6:17–18).

THE WORD SPREADS (19:20)

Jesus gave his apostles authority over evil spirits (Luke 10:19), but having names written in heaven was to be the greater focus of joy (10:20).[5568] Salvation is an important basis for joy in Luke (15:7, 10) and coheres with Luke’s ultimate focus here: the good news is spreading. That the Lord’s message was growing reflects other summary statements in Acts (Acts 2:47; 5:14; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; see esp. comment on Acts 6:7)[5569] and forms an inclusio with 19:10, 17, underlining the especially dramatic spread of the message in Asia. That the Lord’s message spread with κράτος might evoke God’s mighty deeds in Luke 1:51 and hence his title as the mighty one in 1:49.[5570]

Paul’s years of suffering and patient endurance were now bearing fruit; the barriers to the Gentiles had broken down, and Paul was seeing his greatest successes yet. Luke provides a positive portrayal, even though it is possible that the following events (Acts 19:23–40) turned out so badly that Paul could not again enter Ephesus in person (cf. 20:16). Whether or not this is the case, however, Luke was undoubtedly right about the growth of the Jesus movement in Ephesus: it was the Lord’s message that spread, and it would continue to spread after Paul’s departure. Strong evidence for a flourishing church in the province by the end of the first century (continuing in subsequent centuries) provides eloquent testimony to this growth (see comment on Acts 19:10; for the rapid spread of ideas and information in urban antiquity, see also comment there).

(3) Plans for Jerusalem and Rome (19:21–22)

The brief notice in 19:21–22 shifts the narrative’s focus toward Rome, preparing for Paul’s Roman custody in Acts 21–28, just as Luke 9:51–52 shifts the Gospel’s focus toward Jerusalem, preparing for Jesus’s passion. Paul’s movements earlier in Luke’s narrative may suggest that Paul was interested in Rome earlier, but here the narrative turns explicitly toward this goal.

PLANS FOR ROME (19:21)

“Once these things had been fulfilled” (19:21) prepares for a chronological transition to a new phase in the story (cf. 24:27),[5571] though Luke neither uses the phrase often nor regularly provides such transitions (contrast the completion of speech in Matt 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).[5572]

As Acts 1:8 sets out the geographic program for the book as a whole, so 19:21 sets out the geographic program for Acts 20–28, and it also emphasizes that Paul’s plan to visit Rome came from God, not from an apparent failure in Ephesus.[5573] Paul’s plans to visit Macedonia and Achaia again (which Luke surveys in 20:1–3) fit the pattern of his ministry elsewhere, both in Acts (14:21–23; 15:36; 16:4–5) and in Paul’s letters (1 Cor 4:18–21; 16:3–7; 2 Cor 12:20–13:2; 1 Thess 2:17–18; 3:1, 5, 10–11).

Luke here provides an itinerary for the rest of Acts, though it is as asymmetric as his outline in Acts 1:8: Macedonia and Achaia (20:1–4), Jerusalem (21:15–23:30), and Rome (28:16–31), with the necessary activities between. There are, granted, major sections omitted from the present summary, which is incomplete (especially in Asia, 20:5–38; and Caesarea, 23:31–26:32), but the direction is clear enough: after revisiting his churches, Paul must go to Rome via Jerusalem. In theological, interpretive terms, Paul must go to the heart of the empire by way of the heart of Judaism; he must fulfill the mission from the center of the faith’s heritage; the rejection of much of Israel again promotes the mission to the Gentiles.

Luke’s subsequent narratives show that he is not much interested in the later journey to Macedonia and Achaia (despite the likelihood that Luke knew Philippi best), but he is committed enough to his sources and perhaps to his audience’s locale not to omit such a major journey. His focus, however, is clearly Jerusalem and Rome. (Even Caesarea is in a sense part of the mission to Rome as well as a geographic transition from Jerusalem to Rome; it is the seat of the Roman governor.) In the context, Paul feels free to move on because he has sufficiently completed his work in Asia, a matter Luke repeatedly emphasizes (19:10, 17, 20); Paul’s letters also portray an apostle eager to move on and counting even initial, representative evangelization of a location as fulfilling his calling there (Rom 15:19–23; cf. 16:26; Col 1:23).

Luke’s wording is ambiguous: does Paul resolve in his spirit (cf. Acts 17:16) to travel the itinerary described in this verse, or is it “by the Spirit”—that is, God’s Spirit—that he resolves to do so? Grammar cannot settle the question either way, but Luke’s theology and usage strongly favor the latter interpretation, which most scholars consequently prefer.[5574] That Paul “must” (δεῖ) see Rome is probably the language of divine necessity, implying God’s purposes.[5575]

The Spirit’s central mission in Acts is to empower the witnesses to testify to the ends of the earth (1:8); here the Spirit begins pointing Paul toward the heart of the empire.[5576] The Spirit had been guiding the church into broader engagement (Acts 8:29; 10:19; 16:6–7), sometimes in dramatic ways (8:39). The Spirit was responsible for Paul’s earlier missionary journey (13:2, 4). The Spirit gave Paul a revelation about his protection in Corinth (18:10) some eighteen months before his persecution there (18:12). The Spirit provided prophetic warnings concerning Jerusalem (20:22–23; 21:11). “The Spirit” is also ambiguous grammatically in 18:25 and 20:22, but probably the former instance and certainly the latter one refer to God’s Spirit; this is the usual meaning of “the Spirit” in Luke-Acts.[5577]

Thus the rest of Acts happens according to God’s plan, which Paul deliberately follows because he is led by the Spirit. Thus Paul will resist warnings about Jerusalem that are based on the Spirit (21:4, 11–12), because he knows God’s will more fully (21:13–14), because he, too, has been guided by God’s Spirit (20:22; here, 19:21). That the Spirit seems to point in two different directions (an ambiguity in his tradition that Luke does not resolve) shows the difficulties faced by charismatic communities when multiple individuals are charismatically endowed, yet early Christians’ experience of the Spirit was too central for them to minimize it (2:17–18). In Paul’s theology, all prophecy is partial (1 Cor 13:9); how prophetic details fit into God’s larger schema is not always available to the prophets (cf. Luke 7:20). Given the ancient expectation that oracles were often ambiguous, Luke’s first audience may have found this tension less troubling than we do. Luke’s apologetic for Paul, however, may invite him to clarify that Paul’s subsequent suffering no more means that he was not led by God than that Jesus’s passion, predicted by Jesus in advance, means that he was not led by God.[5578]

Luke’s own narrative structuring clarifies that Paul’s plan here is God’s plan for him. Just as Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, providing the geographic goal of much of Luke’s Gospel narrative (Luke 9:51), Paul here begins a mission pointing toward Rome.[5579] In both cases, Luke provides an important geographic structuring cue and foreshadows (or, more precisely, overtly predicts) the future course of his narrative. In both cases, the protagonist also begins a journey to his “passion”: Jesus to his arrest and execution, Paul to his arrest and trial.[5580]

Luke mentions Paul’s intention here before the riot of Acts 19:23–41, emphasizing that Paul did not leave Asia simply because of trouble there (trouble that Luke does not deny, though it may have included more serious local repercussions than he reports). Trouble from Asia nevertheless follows Paul to Jerusalem (21:27–29). Ancient historians were not averse to reporting unseen thoughts of characters; even the sober historian Tacitus sometimes indulges in reporting characters’ thoughts and fears (e.g., Hist. 2.74)—indeed, probably more often than does Luke.

These travel plans are Lukan theology, but the thoughts Luke attributes to Paul here were authentically the historical Paul’s. Paul certainly had plans to go both to Jerusalem (Rom 15:25; 2 Cor 1:16; cf. 1 Cor 16:3) and to Rome (Rom 1:11, 13; 15:23–24; cf. 2 Cor 10:16). He would go through Macedonia first and then, he hoped, to Achaia (1 Cor 16:5–6; cf. Rom 15:26), after leaving Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8); then he would travel to Judea (2 Cor 1:16). He planned to go to Rome as soon as he finished in Jerusalem (Rom 15:24–25, 31–32), though he knew Jerusalem’s dangers (Rom 15:31). His plan to visit Rome may also be suggested by the migration of his colleagues Aquila and Prisca, who were with him during much of his ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:19) but perhaps a year later were already leading a house church in Rome (Rom 16:3).

This is one of the few segments of Paul’s life for which his letters provide a secure sequence, and the sequence here and in following chapters fits Paul’s letters precisely where there is overlap. Neither source includes every detail found in the other (if they did, we would need to suspect dependence),[5581] but they confirm each other on the points where they overlap.[5582] A fuller table is provided at Acts 20:1–3.

Paul’s Letters

Acts

Paul teaches the “Galatians” about the collection (1 Cor 16:1)

*

Paul strengthens “the disciples” throughout Galatia and Phrygia (18:23)

Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8)

Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (19:1–20)

Many events while Paul is in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8)

a. Visitors: members of Chloe’s household (1 Cor 1:11); Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, with a gift (16:17); someone (probably Stephanas’s group) with a letter (7:1)

b. Wrote 1 Corinthians

c. Apparently a painful visit, an aborted visit via Macedonia, and possibly Paul’s second, potentially painful, visit to Corinth (briefly alluded to in 2 Cor 2:1; 12:14; 13:2), if this was not deferred until the period of Acts 20:2–3†

Paul’s stay in Ephesus lasts more than two years (19:8, 10; 20:31)

The summaries are too brief (esp. 19:10), with a few examples added that are germane to Luke’s points about the gospel spreading (19:10–20) and persecution (19:23–20:1); he has addressed the Corinthian church’s inner life too little for us to expect comment on the Corinthian correspondence from Ephesus

Apollos is known to the Corinthians as a strong preacher and is with Paul in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:12)

Apollos earlier left Ephesus for Corinth, where he preached for a period of time (18:24–28)

Paul plans to visit

a. Macedonia (1 Cor 16:5)‡

b. Then Achaia (1 Cor 16:5–6; cf. 4:18–21)

c. Judea (Rom 15:25; 2 Cor 1:16)

d. And finally Rome (Rom 1:11–13; 15:23–25; cf. 2 Cor 10:16)

Paul plans to visit

a. Macedonia

b. Achaia

c. Judea

d. Rome

(in this sequence; 19:21)

*

He writes as if the Corinthian Christians knew of this journey.

†

Riesner,

Early Period

, 299, appears to think of Paul’s second letter as a surrogate visit, taking 2 Cor 2:1 figuratively in its context of abandoned travel plans. Given Luke’s summary of “two years” in a verse in Acts 19:10 (though adding afterward an anecdote), however, we should not count Luke’s silence against an interim journey noted only in 2 Corinthians.

‡

One planned visit was aborted at least temporarily, but the sequence of the journey would be similar on other occasions, since Paul would visit both Macedonian and Achaian believers whenever possible. For a planned Macedonian visit, cf. also Phil 2:24; but unless this was written during an Ephesian imprisonment (which I doubt; cf. the likeliest sense of 4:22), it involves later plans (as also 1 Tim 1:3).

SENDING MESSENGERS AHEAD (19:22)

Immediately after Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), he sent messengers ahead of him (9:52a; cf. also 10:1; 19:29; 22:8; perhaps 3:4); likewise, Paul, having determined to see Rome after Macedonia (Acts 19:21), sends messengers on ahead to prepare his way to Macedonia (the closest parallel Luke has available for this period, 19:22). That these disciples are sent as a team of two fits Jesus’s instructions in the Gospel (Luke 10:1; cf. 22:8) and Paul’s usual practice (Acts 13:2; 15:40);[5583] the exceptions of 17:14–16 and Paul’s detention are occasioned by necessity and occur only after Paul has matured in his apostolic ministry (like Peter in 9:32–43; 10:9–48, though at least in the latter case he also had colleagues [10:23; 11:12]). That they “ministered” to him[5584] could mean financially (Luke 8:3) but probably refers to service in practical details that left Paul freer for his ministry (cf. table service, Luke 4:39; 10:40; 12:37; 17:8; 22:27; esp. Acts 6:2). This is probably similar to the help that Mark had once provided (Acts 13:5); it probably also follows a model for helpers of men of God in Scripture, the helpers normally being men of God in training (Exod 24:13; 33:11; Josh 1:1; 2 Kgs 3:11).

Paul’s letters attest that he originally sent Timothy (1 Cor 4:17) from Ephesus (16:8) and planned for him to organize the collection journey,[5585] possibly even in his own stead and certainly before him (16:10–11, in the context of 16:5–9).[5586] The Corinthian church knew Timothy well (2 Cor 1:1, 19), and Timothy was with Paul when he later stayed briefly in Corinth (Rom 16:21).

The more difficult question is the identity of Erastus (see also comment at Acts 18:8). We know of an Erastus from Corinth who was a city officer (Rom 16:23), and some scholars suggest that the two be identified.[5587] Both are related to Corinth (though only one explicitly through being sent there), and early Christian literature never mentions an Erastus not associated with Corinth in some way. Erastus could have been from Corinth, traveled for Paul, and later returned to Corinth to become a city officer (16:23).

If we identify the two, it bears mention that many scholars identify the city official Erastus in 16:23 with a city official by this name found in a Corinthian inscription. Some doubt the identification; an οἰκονόμος (16:23)[5588] was normally of lower social status than an aedile, and some date the inscription significantly later.[5589] Others support the identification, including J. H. Kent, the editor of the three volumes of Corinthian inscriptions.[5590] Although an οἰκονόμος was usually of lower status than an aedile (because the former was a much more common office), it was also one of the Greek terms used to translate the Latin title aedilis.[5591] Winter notes that the inscription is from Nero’s era and that Erastus was a rare name in Corinth.[5592] It is also unlikely that the oath of office would need to exclude Christians, any more than (some argue) it necessarily excluded nonapostate Jews in Roman Alexandria (for frequent neutrality on secondary issues, cf. Acts 18:12–15).[5593] If this is the same person as in Paul’s letter, he was quite wealthy. Candidates for this office offered pledges of the funds they would provide the city if elected; election required both many supporters and considerable financial resources.[5594] Still, the inscription’s Erastus may have status inconsistency: although aediles could be either freeborn or freedmen, some scholars contend that the evidence of the inscription might favor a freedman.[5595] Yet the name was also consistent with status. It was relatively uncommon in Greece,[5596] though some note that it is far from unique.[5597]

In any case, others doubt that Luke’s Erastus is the Erastus who lived in Corinth (Rom 16:23).[5598] Against the identification of the two would be the surmise of some that Erastus might be a public slave,[5599] who therefore could not travel freely.[5600] Against it also might be the likelier surmise that, as a person of status, he would have patronal obligations in Corinth, which could reduce freedom to undertake a journey of such duration.[5601] Such patronal obligations would not preclude travel altogether (cf. even Rom 16:1). Especially if this Erastus later became an aedile as well (as in the inscription), he might have leisure to travel, but it is unlikely that he would have stayed away from Corinth for extended periods; a visit with other delegates and a swift return (cf. 1 Cor 16:15–18) is possible, but Paul’s journey to Syria via Macedonia and Asia does not seem swift. Another possible argument against identifying the two is that Paul’s lack of a specific Christian designation for Erastus in Rom 16:23 allows the possibility that Erastus was merely a patron (cf. comment on Acts 19:31), not a full-fledged member of the Christian community[5602] (in contrast to Luke’s Erastus). Each of these arguments depends on other hypotheses, but they do warn that identifying the two persons named Erastus also presupposes a particular reconstruction of the evidence.

It is possible that Paul in Romans greets him by a title that he acquired in previous service; perhaps he was a public slave freed at the end of his service, whereupon he acquired more mobility (though it seems likelier that he was not a public slave, and if he was one, it was a temporary servitude before and after a year of service). The identification between both Erastuses could seem especially plausible if Erastus were part of the delegation in 1 Cor 16:15–18, perhaps sent back at this time. In this case, he might bear the Latin surname or nickname of either “Achaicus” or “Fortunatus” (16:17); a Roman name alongside his Greek one fits the slight probability that the aedile Erastus was a freedman and the certainty that he was a Roman citizen and citizen of Corinth.[5603] Still, if Erastus has multiple names, one might expect Paul to select more consistently the names he will use for him; a Roman name could have made sense in writing to Rome (e.g., Tertius or Gaius in Rom 16:22–23).

Whatever the case in the above discussion, however, some do identify Luke’s Erastus with Paul’s coworker Erastus who reportedly later settled at least temporarily in Corinth (2 Tim 4:20). This tradition might independently[5604] suggest that a Pauline coworker named Erastus had earlier acquired familiarity with the church in that city.[5605]

c. Hostility in Ephesus (19:23–41)

Luke emphasizes that Paul’s conflicts in Ephesus, as elsewhere, stemmed from external hostility to his message, not from any seditious activity on Paul’s part (pace the accusation in Acts 24:5). Paul’s monotheistic message appears as a threat, but only because his message is spreading.[5606] Because Paul’s role in Acts also serves as a missionary model, this narrative encourages believers that they must be ready to face hostility for preaching Christ in environments unfriendly to their message.[5607]

Robert Stoops has argued plausibly that Luke’s presentation fits “a pattern of apologetic argument developed among diaspora Jews,” in which the rioting of one’s opponents invites Roman confirmation of the rights of one’s own group.[5608] If Rome held a Jewish community responsible for a disorder, that Jewish community would suffer harsh treatment; whenever Jews could show their opponents responsible for the disorder, however, they had their rights publicly reaffirmed.[5609] Philo used Gaius Caligula’s “refusal to accept this logic” to show “Gaius’ depravity” (Embassy 335–36).[5610] Because Christians belonged to Judaism, they were to receive the same rights other Jews would.[5611] Because Roman authorities were not pacifists, the critical issue was which group initiated the conflict. Despite his pro-Jewish apologetic, Josephus admits the justice of punishing a Jewish community when it initiated the conflict (War 2.487–98).[5612]

I. LUKE’S REPORT AND HISTORICAL CONFLICT IN EPHESUS

Luke exploits dramatically the events of this section to the fullest extent possible, but he does not invent them. To invent a riot associated with Paul’s activity would weaken Luke’s own apologetic case. Given Luke’s apparent lack of as much information here as in the “we” sections, the accuracy of his local details also goes beyond what we would expect for pure invention (though by themselves such local details do not carry the case for authenticity). Paul also speaks of public conflicts with people hostile to his ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 15:32; 16:8–9; 2 Cor 1:8); although these events probably precede the time of his departure depicted by Luke (we lack Pauline correspondence relevant to the precise time that Luke depicts), they suggest that, if anything, Paul suffered much worse in Ephesus than Luke indicates (a suspicion not diminished by Acts 20:16).

(1) The Riot and Luke’s Apologetic

Although Luke’s storytelling skills are conspicuous in this section, the events he depicts are hardly his invention.[5613] Luke would not invent an account that would lend credibility to the charge that Paul stirred riots (24:5); he defends Paul from such charges by denying that he started the riot,[5614] but were Luke completely free from the demands of history or the dangers of refutation, he could have accomplished his purpose more readily by denying that the Ephesian riot involved Paul even by way of accusation.[5615] That Luke could not deny Paul’s involvement suggests that there were people who recalled that the unrest there related to his missionary activity (cf. 21:27–28).

Given his apologetic considerations, it is far more likely that Luke indeed toned down the repercussions of the incident than that he created it.[5616] (A case in point is Luke’s possibly selective explanation for Paul’s circumventing Ephesus in 20:16; see comment there.) Most scholars agree that the riot is, in fact, far less severe than descriptions of sufferings in Paul’s letters, but paradoxically this restraint has also been viewed as a novelistic feature, just as excess dramatization would have been. Pervo wrongly accuses Luke of novelizing because he omits too much suffering here[5617] (whereas Pervo elsewhere complains that Luke overly dramatizes Paul’s life).

Luke covers most of Paul’s two years in Ephesus in summary statements and a few anecdotes, not in detail, but Luke is well aware that Paul faced there opposition other than the dramatic incident that he details (20:19, which fits Luke’s pattern but is not narrated in his account). Luke is hardly obligated to report every hardship that Paul faced; constrained by his apologetic purpose, he has every reason to report less suffering than he does, not more.[5618] The question is whether Luke invented suffering for Paul, not whether he narrated all of it; and clearly Luke, far from inventing it, narrated only a portion of it (cf. 2 Cor 11:23–27).[5619] To keep to his point, a good historian was expected to know what to omit and what to treat in cursory fashion, as well as what to develop (Lucian Hist. 6).

(2) Paul’s Own Letters

Paul’s letters confirm that his large ministry in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8–9) led to many enemies (16:9) and to life-threatening opposition there (15:32; 16:9; 2 Cor 1:8–10).[5620] Well before the riot depicted here, Paul already faced false accusations, probably in Ephesus (2 Cor 6:8). That is, Luke’s central point (Paul’s persecution for his successful ministry in Ephesus; cf. 1 Cor 16:9) is confirmed by Paul’s letters regardless of the extent to which Luke could have dramatized this particular event.[5621]

Probably none of the accounts in 1 Corinthians refer to Luke’s riot, which Luke narrates at the end of Paul’s ministry there; we have no letters of Paul from the close of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, he was still writing from Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8). But these hints do suggest a context that could have led to climactic public opposition such as Luke narrates. The riot, which would have embarrassed his supporters (see comment on Acts 19:31), could have led to official banishment or strategic departure; it is doubtful that mere danger to his life (as he reports in the Corinthian correspondence) would have forced him to leave (cf. 1 Cor 15:30–32; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:20–21), and in fact it had not done so (1 Cor 16:8).

It is, however, possible that Paul faced such dangers as Luke reports sometime before the end of his stay in Ephesus (so that Luke’s riot coincides with Paul’s descriptions); in this case, Paul stayed on a bit longer, and Luke merely places the most dramatic confrontation at the end of his Ephesus narrative for reasons of narrative climax (cf. comment on Acts 20:1). It is possible that Ephesus was also the location where Priscilla and Aquila were also in danger, intervening to rescue Paul (Rom 16:4), since they were in this city with him (1 Cor 16:19; Acts 18:26).[5622] Such suggestions, however, cannot be much more than speculation; Luke’s narrative is the only narrative of the events that we have.

(3) An Ephesian Imprisonment?

That Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus[5623] is possible[5624] (perhaps even more than once; it would help account for some or at least one of the “many imprisonments” of 2 Cor 11:23; cf. 6:5) but somewhat speculative.[5625] Luke might well have reason not to mention it, since he cannot mention everything and focuses on positive precedents (cf. comment on Acts 18:2).[5626] But if Paul’s case ended up in court, banishment from the city was more likely than imprisonment, and even this penalty would require the decision of the proconsul.[5627]

Luke’s silence cannot count against Paul’s Ephesian imprisonment, since Acts clearly has gaps[5628] (which Luke himself sometimes fills in his other summaries, e.g., Acts 20:19–20). If Paul was imprisoned, he may have been unable to return (cf. 20:16) because he was released illegally through a bribe,[5629] through the patronage of embarrassed former public supporters who wanted him out of town as quickly as possible (see comment on Acts 19:31). If these events occurred during the interregnum after the proconsul’s death (no later than December of 54 or January of 55 C.E.), when three deputies remained in charge, instability could have facilitated Paul’s release.[5630] But ultimately all such discussion is speculation; unless more information comes to light, we cannot be certain even that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus. That he faced opposition there, however, is clear.

(4) Local Color

Scholars have also pointed to various genuine elements of local color.[5631] Since Luke had access to such accurate information, it is just as reasonable to suppose that he had it in connection with Paul’s ministry there, about which he would have at least this much knowledge (cf. 20:15–17), as that he had it from some source unrelated to Paul. Luke appears to assume knowledge of a wider body of information than he reports, mentioning Alexander the Jew and Paul’s relation to the Asiarchs as if they were known. Thus many scholars, while stressing Luke’s style, affirm that he depends on a report of an authentic event.[5632] Such elements reflecting the spirit of Ephesus include the following:

Cumulatively, such details have persuaded many scholars that Luke had substantial information, at least about Ephesus. As the Oxford Classical Dictionary points out, Luke here “gives a vivid picture of the Artemisium’s religious and economic importance for the Roman city.”[5638] Historian Fergus Millar observes, concerning Luke’s report of this incident, that “no text illustrates better the city life of the Greek East, its passionate local loyalties, its potential violence precariously held in check by the city officials, and the overshadowing presence of the Roman governor.”[5639]

Because eastern Mediterranean urban life was cosmopolitan, however, the earlier elements cited above were widely known, appearing even in Greek novels. The later elements in the list are more compelling, but intimate knowledge of Ephesus does not mean that Paul himself was part of the danger involved in the events. The local color therefore becomes only a subsidiary factor for consideration; it is the agreement with Paul’s writings and the logistical challenges the narrative poses to Luke’s own apologetic that are most important here.

(5) Questions and Objections

Many scholars are skeptical that Paul would have generated such a commotion in a city of this size, leading to an illegal assembly that could have endangered Ephesus’s free status (19:40). Although Luke has undoubtedly tightened and dramatized the account, as many Greco-Roman historians dramatized their narratives, we should not doubt the plausibility of such a violent reaction. A random source indicates that, not long before this, Claudius had expelled a number of Jewish people from Rome over issues possibly related to Christ (Suet. Claud. 25.4; see comment on Acts 18:2). Rome had also reacted violently to Jewish proselytism when it was publicized as exploitive (cf. Jos. Ant. 18.82–83). Although we know less about reactions against monotheistic cults in Ephesus, a hostile reaction to alleged threats there is no less plausible; indeed, the Artemis cult was more central to Ephesian identity than any of the reported xenophobic incidents were central to Rome. Judaism was established in Asia and might often be difficult to accuse of attacking other cults; Paul’s movement was more aggressive, making the charge more plausible. Certainly, at some point the Christian movement became a major and controversial force in Asia (see Pliny Ep. 10.96–97); why should we not accept the witness of our earliest sources that Paul had something to do with this advance?

Some think that Luke has reedited an anti-Jewish riot,[5640] given that Paul is not central in the action (cf. the similar argument of some other scholars concerning some of the storm scenes in Acts 27). But this proposal is unlikely; if Paul had nothing to do with the riot, why would Luke use this one at all (given the frequency of urban riots and even some anti-Jewish ones elsewhere) instead of either fabricating from whole cloth or (more likely for a historian) simply dramatizing some genuine persecution that Paul did in fact face? Paul escapes immediate capture, as in Acts 17:10, 14; but as we have noted, we know from Paul’s letters that he was facing even potentially fatal troubles in Ephesus (1 Cor 15:32; 16:8–9; 2 Cor 1:8), and Paul seems unwelcome in Ephesus afterward (though Luke appears anxious to avoid reporting this plainly; see comment on Acts 20:16). As in Acts 27, Paul is not the direct subject of most of the action; as Luke’s apologetic emphasizes, Paul is certainly not the cause of the riot (any more than of the storm in Acts 27).

Most important, needlessly inventing Paul’s association with a riot would run counter to Luke’s apologetic (cf. Acts 24:5 and comment there). Instead, Luke must explain and minimize Paul’s association with a riot that Luke cannot afford to ignore. The riot in Ephesus may have offered the foundation for some of the initial charges against Paul (cf. 19:33–34; 21:27, 29; 24:5).

II. THE ARTEMIS CULT IN EPHESUS

Like other ancient cities that were not predominantly Jewish, Ephesus hosted many pagan cults, including the cult of the emperor. The most distinctive cult for which Ephesus was widely known, however, was clearly the Artemis cult. Some scholars have even noted specific elements in which Luke may covertly highlight the Christian God’s superiority to Artemis of Ephesus, showing that the Christian beliefs’ threat to Artemis worship in Ephesus was in fact a real one.[5641]

(1) The Emperor and Ephesus

Like all other major cities of the Greco-Roman world outside Judea, Ephesus worshiped a traditional pantheon of deities.[5642] For comment on other deities worshiped in Ephesus, see comment on Acts 19:26.

Naturally, the emperor was worshiped there as well.[5643] Ephesus was the leading center of Asia’s emperor cult, eventually possessing six or seven imperial temples (though, at most, five at one time): one each to Roma and Julius Caesar, two to Augustus,[5644] one (later) to Domitian,[5645] and two to Hadrian.[5646] The first temple to Augustus, likely the one standing in the state agora’s center, may date to Augustus’s era; the small temples to Julius and Roma, found north of the state agora, date to 29 B.C.E.[5647]

The cult was now woven into the fabric of Ephesian culture, without resistance. In many ancient cities, citizens with the most wealth bid for the honor of becoming priests in the imperial cult (Suet. Calig. 22.3). In Ephesus, one could not honor Artemis while dishonoring the emperor and vice versa; early in Augustus’s reign, a sanctuary to Rome and Augustus was built within the sacred space of the Artemis temple.[5648] On the relationship between the imperial cult and the cult of Artemis in first-century Ephesus, see further comment on Acts 19:31, 40.

(2) Ephesus and Artemis

Throughout the empire, however, people recognized the Ephesian Artemis as the city’s primary cult (and a major religious export; see comment on Acts 19:27).[5649] Much evidence attests her prominence.[5650] Thus one prays to “Artemis, goddess of Ephesus” (Xen. Eph. Anthia 2.11) or binds another by an oath to “Artemis,” the goddess of the citizens’ ancestors (3.5). Artemis was so central in the life of the city that many Ephesian parents named their children after the goddess.[5651] Non-Christian texts from the first century B.C.E. through the fourth century C.E. contain 524 references to Ephesus; if one subtracts 175 that are incidental, one-third of these references relate to the Artemis cult.[5652] Even more than Athens’s devotion to Athena and perhaps more than any other Mediterranean city’s devotion to its patron deity (excepting Jerusalem), Ephesus was devoted to Artemis, its patron deity.[5653] For discussion of the temple, see comment on Acts 19:27; for discussion of the month and festivals dedicated to Artemis, see comment on Acts 19:24.

Ephesians were fiercely loyal to their patron goddess.[5654] This is not surprising, considering the centrality of local cults to the self-image and perceived status of cities.[5655] The Ephesians had once reportedly dedicated their city to Artemis when Croesus was attacking them, by connecting their city’s wall to her temple with a rope (Hdt. 1.26).[5656] Archaeologists have found two enormous statues of Artemis near the theater (see comment on Acts 19:29);[5657] she appears in other statues and on coins.[5658] It appears that Ephesus hosted even a mystery cult in Artemis’s honor,[5659] though most attested worship of her there was public.[5660]

That traditional Ephesians would tolerate no opposition to Artemis is suggested by an incident several centuries earlier, in which Sardians who interrupted an Artemis festival were condemned to death (I. Eph. 1a.2).[5661] (It was known that Ionians in general, celebrating ancient traditions, were not easily persuaded to surrender them.)[5662] We know of the popular defense of temples in Egypt in the Ptolemaic and especially the Roman periods, including against Christian aggression in the fourth century C.E.[5663] Ephesian identity was no less deeply connected with the Artemis cult than most Egyptian locales were with their local deities.[5664] It is difficult to doubt that traditional Ephesians would resent Paul’s alleged criticisms of other gods.

Ephesians approached Artemis as a “savior” (e.g., I. Eph. 1255, 1265),[5665] though they also applied this title to Tyche (Fate; I. Eph. 1238) and Zeus (I. Eph. 1243). Many scholars argue that the zodiac necklace on her statue in the temple symbolized her power to protect from Fate, which ruled by means of the stars.[5666] (For the connections between fate and astrology, see the excursus on astrology at Acts 2:9–11.)[5667] Apparently, she was worshiped more often “with food, libations, and incense” than with blood sacrifices.[5668] According to one line of tradition, Leto gave birth to Artemis near Ephesus (Strabo 14.1.20).[5669]

Demetrius made silver shrines, but statues and other artwork concerning Artemis were even more common. She is normally portrayed with legs together, her upper arms alongside her upper torso with forearms protruding forward.[5670] Ephesians washed, dressed, crowned, and carried such Artemis statues in many festival processions;[5671] likewise, sculptures and paintings on Artemis’s temple depicted her myths.[5672]

(3) An Anatolian Fertility Deity?

The cult of the “Ephesian Artemis” was distinct from that of the traditional Greek goddess Artemis, although, in view of the city’s long Greek history and from the perspective of most of the cult’s participants, she would not be viewed as a different goddess. Scholars have traditionally often associated the Ephesian Artemis with the earlier Anatolian fertility cult of the mother goddess adopted by Ephesus’s Greek settlers,[5673] a position we must explore before examining alternatives that would qualify it. Pausanias attests that Greeks adapted the local goddess to fit their pantheon (Paus. 7.2.6). In an early period, she “was only the fertility goddess whose old temple had been annexed to a Greek city,” with a high priest called the Megabyzus (the King Bee) and a temple as “a state within the state till Lysimachus gave the temple administration to a Greek board, and removed the bee from Ephesus’s coinage.”[5674]

Although statues of Artemis in the Greek form are not unknown in Ephesus, most statues in public places and in representations on coins follow a distinctly Anatolian form.[5675] Her headdress and bulbous appendages (traditionally interpreted as breasts) in artistic depictions and the characteristics of her priesthoods and festivals continued to evoke the “Asiatic” mother goddess.[5676]

The association with a mother goddess is understandable, given the latter’s prominence. Ephesians honored Meter, the divine “mother,” in cultic settings (e.g., I. Eph. 1214–27); she is the “Phrygian Mother” (I. Eph. 1217, 1218) and Rhea (I. Eph. 1269);[5677] such honor could occur at the Artemisia (I. Eph. 1225). (On Cybele and her associations with Anatolia, see further comment on Acts 14:12, 15.) The blending of goddess figures characterized Hellenistic syncretism, which was a natural result of cosmopolitan polytheism;[5678] Isis was also approached as a breast-feeding mother goddess.[5679]

Recent scholarship, however, has questioned or qualified the traditional consensus. Various views exist as to the bulbous appendages on her breast, which appear on her images over a wide area after the second century B.C.E.[5680] Traditionally, most argued that the appendages were breasts (hence her title Artemis Polymastus, or, in Latin, Diana Multimamma, the Many-Breasted).[5681] Macrobius claims that breasts covered Isis’s entire body, which suggests her motherly role.[5682] Against this view, some scholars argue that the appendages were not likely breasts, this interpretation appearing only in polemical Christian sources such as Minucius Felix and Jerome.[5683] Arguing that Zeus Labraundenus of Tegea wore a comparable apron, some question the suitability of the breast interpretation.[5684]

Yet whether or not one accepts the breast interpretation, the evidence for fertility at first appears wider once placed in its larger religious context. Artemis is not the only cult figure from the Hellenistic and Roman period with such appendages.[5685] Suggesting that the appendages were “breasts, or bulls’ testicles which were hung on the statue after their sacrifice,” David W. J. Gill points out similar goddesses elsewhere in the East[5686] and notes, “The use of bulls’ genitalia is also found within the cult of the goddess Cybele which was common throughout Anatolia.”[5687] Another goddess reportedly claimed she was covered with testicles, supporting the idea that these were the testicles of sacrificed bulls.[5688] Others have suggested bee eggs[5689] and, more recently, ostrich eggs[5690] or, perhaps more plausibly, fruits.[5691] Most seem to agree that whatever the appendages were, they represent fertility.[5692] Still, the very potential for different interpretations suggests a lack of clarity as to their meaning in Ephesus in this period.[5693]

For good reason, however, many today doubt even the connection with fertility; the myths of the Ephesian Artemis do not address fertility.[5694] Many scholars today are skeptical even of fertility associations in ancient religion in general;[5695] whatever the evidence concerning this point,[5696] however, such fertility need not be attached to Artemis. If anything, Artemis might be associated with ascetic, not orgiastic, behavior.[5697] The statue preserves ancient tradition, probably older than beliefs now associated with it; by contrast, common belief was shaped by the dominance of Greek culture in Ephesus even before the time of Alexander, and it reflects much less emphasis on fertility than scholars have inferred from the statue.[5698] As one scholar puts it, “The cult of Artemis at Ephesus . . . includes Asiatic elements; but this does not make Artemis an eastern goddess.”[5699]

Perhaps we need not altogether rule out some associations with fertility symbolized by the mother goddess, probably especially influential on perception of the deity in an earlier period. Nevertheless, fuller identification of Artemis with Cybele is problematic;[5700] despite some linkage of the two in Asia, they remain mostly distinct in Ephesus, with different titles and distinct portrayals.[5701]

In any case, NT scholars who play down the more dominant Greek elements for this period are certainly wrong, depending more heavily on inference from the traditional artistic portrayals than on explicit literary testimony to the common understanding from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Thus, for example, Haenchen claims that the Ephesian Artemis “was not the chaste huntress of the Greek myths, but essentially the Near Eastern mother-goddess, the symbol of fertility.”[5702] Other writers wrongly describe her as “Oriental rather than Greek”[5703] or complain that “far from being a virgin-goddess, she was a local manifestation of the great mother of gods and men.”[5704]

Although she retained maternal fertility elements, these were not erotic but were domesticated to make her guardian of marriage and family.[5705] The conjunction of remnants of an earlier fertility cult with veneration of a virgin is hardly unknown in the history of religion.[5706] The retention of a fertility deity/mother goddess in artistic portrayals, the meaning of which could be ambiguous or polyvalent, would not have reduced explicit literary associations with the classical Greek goddess, especially since the era of Hellenistic syncretism (see comment on Acts 8:10).[5707] As Strelan notes, Greeks had been in Ephesus close to a thousand years by Paul’s time, “and it is most likely that in most cultic practices, it was the Greek-influenced Artemis who dominated the minds of people, even if some of the symbolic forms of Artemis (such as images) remained traditionally Asiatic.”[5708]

Before the Roman period and in the second century, the Ephesian Artemis appears “on coins as the Huntress with stags,” fitting the Greek understanding.[5709] Portrayals of Artemis as a virgin emphasize not her morality but her freedom from male constraint.[5710] Her temple in Ephesus was “sacred for virgins and maidens”;[5711] also, only men and virgins (not married women) were allowed to enter.[5712] Greek novels portrayed Ephesian Artemis as a virgin huntress (Xen. Eph. Anthia 1.2), a virgin whose arrows protected virgins (Ach. Tat. 6.21.2).[5713] Writing in the late empire, Libanius depicts Ephesian Artemis as a virgin who helps women in childbirth and in procuring husbands.[5714] The emphasis on her virginity fits the traditional Greek portrayals of Artemis.[5715]

In contrast to ancient reports of fertility cults such as Aphrodite’s prostitutes in old Corinth (themselves debated by some scholars today), Artemis’s priestesses were committed to chastity (like Vestal virgins).[5716] Some ancients considered virgins the appropriate priestesses for virgin goddesses.[5717] The Artemis temple traditionally had eunuch priests and virgins serving (Strabo 14.1.23), though practices apparently were changing even in Strabo’s day (the first century B.C.E.),[5718] inviting the sort of prestigious priesthoods that in the Roman period most often would have been filled by married men of status who could afford them. Eunuch priests would comport better with the traditional cult of Cybele—in which priests in a frenzy castrated themselves—especially associated with the interior of Asia.[5719]

It was widely known that Greeks colonized Ionia centuries (reportedly even a millennium) before Paul’s time.[5720] Ephesus had been an Ionian Greek city all this time, and Greek culture predominated particularly after Alexander’s conquests; these factors shaped local and international interpretation of the cult. Around 400 B.C.E., a Greek military expedition set aside one-tenth of its plunder for Artemis of Ephesus.[5721] Later, Xenophon built a smaller temple for Artemis in Greece modeled after the larger one in Ephesus, complete with a wooden image modeled after the golden Ephesian one (Xen. Anab. 5.3.12).

Although earlier scholars dismissed the Greek elements of Artemis found in later novels, these elements not only appear in novels but pervade ancient literature, which sometimes (influenced undoubtedly by the writers’ own milieu) ignore Anatolian aspects of the image. Greek elements appear even in the iconography of Ephesus; Greek and Anatolian elements in the cult were therefore mixed.[5722]

(4) Artemis’s Cult and Women?

Some have emphasized feminine participation in the Artemis cult to explain some Pauline passages about women (Eph 5:22–24; 1 Tim 2:9–15),[5723] but the evidence appears more ambiguous than is often supposed.[5724] According to tradition, Amazons founded Ephesus and Smyrna (Strabo 11.5.4; Pliny E. N.H. 5.31.115) and named both (Strabo 12.3.21).[5725] Traditions also attributed the original shrine and statue of “many-breasted” Artemis to the Amazons.[5726] It was said that Amazon statues remained in Artemis’s temple (Pliny E. N.H. 34.19.53). (On Amazons more generally, see comment on Acts 8:27.)

Whereas Artemis and other goddesses are prominent in statues from Ephesus,[5727] male deities appear less so.[5728] “Most of the male gods of the Greek pantheon receded into the background in a city dominated by a mighty goddess.”[5729] But Artemis was not a feminist liberator in practice.[5730] The role of goddesses and women in myth need hardly translate into equality for women;[5731] Athens exalted its patron deity Athena (see comment on Acts 17:15, 16), yet the literature of classical Athens[5732] typically provides the extreme of women’s subordination by which scholars exonerate other ancient Mediterranean cultures as a bit more moderate.[5733]

Though there were priestesses associated with the cult,[5734] we also know of influential male priests, such as C. Iulius Atticus (I. Eph. 1265). From an earlier period, both virgins and eunuch priests called the Megabyzi served the temple of Artemis (Strabo 14.1.23).[5735] Although some goddess cults employed only female priestesses,[5736] the mother goddess Cybele preferred male Galli (see comment on Acts 8:27), and Apollo at Delphi preferred a virgin (see comment on Acts 16:16). Artemis’s use of both genders for some purposes would not then appear problematic to most people in antiquity. The cult of Artemis did not make Ephesus a stronghold of ancient feminism; women probably experienced greater mobility in Macedonia and Rome.

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