Iii . Demetrius ’ Sc Harge (19:23–27)

Iii . Demetrius ’ Sc Harge (19:23–27)

III. DEMETRIUS’S CHARGE (19:23–27)

Luke portrays Demetrius as a rabble-rousing demagogue, the perfect way to depict an enemy of Paul if Luke wishes to dissociate Paul from being the cause of the riots. Paul’s preaching of aniconic monotheism has rankled economic interests (as in Acts 16:19), but he has not in fact denounced Artemis (19:37). Luke provides us with the setting (19:23–25a) as well as a brief speech (19:25b–27).

(1) The Setting: Stirring Silver Workers (19:23–25a)

It is helpful here to explore questions about the timing (19:23), Demetrius’s status, silver shrines, silver workers, suggested attestation for Demetrius, artisans and trade guilds, economics and the Artemis temple, and the dangers in challenging economic interests.

THE TIMING (19:23)

Acts 19:23 signals the transition to this new section. Some scholars have suggested that the riot may have occurred during the month that Ephesians called Artemision (because Ephesians believed that Artemis was born then), when devotion to Artemis ran especially high.[5737] The leading festival of Artemis, the Artemisia (Ἀρτεμίσια), occurred at the beginning of this month, near the spring equinox. The festival’s central feature “was a great procession” that included all the sanctuary’s cult objects. “For this festival, and for the equestrian, gymnastic, and musical contests that accompanied it,” all of Ionia gathered; “following the ceremony there were often deliberations of a political nature.”[5738] Reportedly, all the local young women and men marched in the procession from Ephesus to Artemis’s temple almost a mile distant, with many visitors as well as most Ephesians present.[5739] One could thus hardly oppose the Ephesian Artemis without appearing also to oppose Ephesus itself.

Although this proposed linkage with the Artemisium or Artemisia is possible, it is by no means necessary; devotion to Artemis remained strong throughout the year. Even if a festival were the necessary backdrop, another festival, the Thargelia, celebrated Artemis’s nativity in May or June;[5740] monthly or even twice-monthly processions went to and from the temple;[5741] and in any case, no festal connection is necessary. Unrest and even riots were common in this period in the cities of Asia Minor, not limited to festivals; Asian inscriptions use ταραχή (like τάραχος here) and στάσις (as in 19:40) in connection with such incidents.[5742] (Luke is careful to note in this and other cases of ταραχή that Paul’s opponents, rather than Paul himself, instigated such incidents [e.g., 17:8, 13]. Such an observation was important, especially in view of charges against Paul [16:20; 24:5].)

We cannot know if they happened near one of these festivals, but if these events occurred in Artemision (March–April), they may have happened shortly before Paul planned to leave anyway (after Pentecost, 1 Cor 16:8), which would fit Acts 19:21. This leaves a gap of time before Paul’s stay in Corinth (Acts 20:3), probably during winter (cf. 1 Cor 16:6),[5743] shortly followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Acts 20:6). Perhaps this gap involves several months in Macedonia, including negotiations with the Corinthian church (Acts 20:1–2; cf. 2 Cor 1:15–2:1).[5744]

DEMETRIUS’S STATUS (19:24)

Luke’s informed audience is ready for this narrative, especially in view of his summary of Paul’s philosophic preaching in a pagan context in 17:22–31. While Luke respected honest trades (18:3), the sort of “craft” here (19:24, 38) evokes that in 17:29. Paul has already challenged silver workers who make idols (Acts 17:29); those responding to the gospel have abandoned silver expended on magic (19:19); and Jesus’s true agents disdain silver (3:6; 20:33; cf. Luke 9:3), in contrast to evildoers (Luke 22:5; Acts 8:20). As for making of “shrines” (here ναούς), Luke’s only other use in Acts proclaims that God does not dwell in them (Acts 17:24).[5745]

Those writing speeches were to attend to issues of local color (Quint. Inst. 3.7.24), which Luke accomplishes well here with his emphasis on Artemis, the cult’s impact on the economy (Acts 19:25), and the temple (19:27) and its cheaper imitations (19:24). Guilds were expected to honor the civic religion.[5746] Each guild had its own patron deity; these artisans making silver shrines obviously had Artemis as theirs.[5747] On the nature of such guilds and the status of artisans, see extended comment on Acts 18:3.

According to Luke’s portrayal, rabble-rousers of low station bypassed the courts (19:38) and used ignoble means to cause trouble for a respectable sage (see comment on Acts 19:9); this required intervention from a member of the “respectable” class (19:35), which supported Paul (or would have done so had it remained politically feasible, 19:31). People of status in this culture would not think highly of any movement originating among the “masses,”[5748] and they viewed most artisans as comparatively lowly (see extended comment on Acts 18:3). Theophilus’s circle (his clients and associates) may not include highly respected artisans, which may be one reason Luke does not emphasize Paul’s work (18:3) until he uses it to challenge patronal ideology (20:34). (Luke does acknowledge Paul’s work as an artisan and does not oppose artisans; his real audience would undoubtedly include many of them. Nevertheless, he recognizes that just as matters of status affect the outcome in courts, they also have an impact on how his contemporaries will receive his apologetic message. Luke would not wish to invent their opposition, any more than that of elites [13:50], but rabble-rousers of this sort might not surprise his audience.)

Artisans divided into two classes, those skilled in fine arts being “free” and craftsmen such as metalsmiths being “lowly” (Men. Rhet. 1.3, 360.25–27). Many people called Antiochus Epiphanes insane because, though he was a ruler, he conversed with commoners such as silversmiths and goldsmiths (Polyb. 26.1.1–3).[5749] Commensurate with the mostly economically determined, rising new upper class in Ephesus (see comment on Acts 18:19),[5750] it is not surprising that some silversmiths did achieve exceptional status, which may have increased their influence in Ephesus.[5751] Further, producing skilled likenesses (here of Artemis’s shrine) was undoubtedly a higher form of labor than simply forging metals more generally.[5752] But unless they had lived in Ephesus, most of Luke’s audience would assume the silversmiths to be conventional low-status artisans,[5753] albeit with significant economic interests. Still more important for Luke’s monotheistic target audience, all who disrespected idols would disrespect Demetrius’s particular profession.[5754]

Demetrius’s economic status is a different question from his social status. Dealing in silver, as Lydia did in purple (Acts 16:14), he would have high overhead costs (assuming, as the text suggests, that he headed his own business) and may well have had other workers and apprentices. Luke suggests that Demetrius was influential in the guild, bringing profit to the entire association (see the end of 19:24).[5755] (Demetrius’s bringing much business to the workers is precisely parallel to the demon-possessed slave girl’s bringing much profit to her owners in 16:16; Luke portrays the world as permitting religious exploitation because of vested economic interests.)[5756] Craftsmen as groups held little political power, but entrepreneurs could prosper.[5757] Excavations show many shops in Ephesus;[5758] on the city’s prosperity in this period, see comment on Acts 19:25.

SILVER SHRINES (19:24)

Scholars generally agree that Luke refers to miniature silver shrines of Artemis, probably models of the temple. They debate, however, the strength of the evidence for silver shrines of Artemis, depending on the standard of evidence they employ. Very little ancient history could survive the most rigorous standard of evidence—in this case, meaning the recovery from Ephesus of silver shrines of Artemis that had not been later melted down. Conversely, we lack much evidence for specifically silver shrines anywhere.[5759] Thus Lake and Cadbury note the use of miniature terra-cotta temples but object that “there is a complete lack of evidence that they were made of silver.”[5760]

When we consider the overall paucity of surviving evidence from antiquity, however,[5761] the existence of makers of silver shrines for wealthy customers is plausible, although makers of cheaper shrines presumably predominated. The evidence is as follows:[5762]

1. Craftsmen produced small terra-cotta temples;[5763] such miniature copies of temples have been found elsewhere.[5764]

2. Such shrines could exist in more expensive material, though few have survived:

a. Archaeologists have discovered a more expensive, “miniature marble temple of Artemis.”[5765]

b. Expensive metals were often melted down for reuse in later centuries, leaving fewer surviving samples.[5766]

3. An abundance of silver statuettes of Artemis have been recovered and are mentioned in texts (see comment below).

4. It is reasonable to assume that if we have silver statuettes of Artemis (as noted above), a smaller number of miniature shrines of the same material existed:

a. An image of Artemis appears in a niche of the same material.[5767]

b. Statues were sometimes connected with miniature shrines.[5768]

c. Archaeologists have uncovered a bronze matrix from second- or first-century B.C.E. Smyrna, portraying Artemis in her temple; images were mass-produced from such molds.[5769]

d. In some portrayals from antiquity, Artemis wears “a miniature of the ναός on her head.”[5770]

5. Silver working was an important and well-attested trade in Ephesus and was at least sometimes connected with Artemis (see discussion below).

6. Even apart from silver often being melted down,[5771] we need not assume that silver shrines were abundant even to begin with, since

a. only Demetrius is specified as a maker of them;

b. the other guild members belong to his more general trade, which Luke specifies only as “silversmith” (19:24; many of the others may have been engaged in forging silver images of Artemis or serving the tourist industry or the Artemis temple in other respects);[5772]

c. silver being more expensive than terra-cotta and bronze,[5773] the market could have supported the production of fewer “silver shrines” than of the other kinds.

7. Specifically silver shrines were not common anywhere, and the specialty is rare enough to render it doubtful that Luke would have selected these particular artisans as Paul’s opponents unless this (or something like it) appeared in his source.

Some scholars argue for the shrines as souvenirs and amulets;[5774] others think that most were votive offerings in the temple.[5775] Evidence suggests both uses. Both statues and model shrines would have important domestic uses, often in wall niches in homes; such figures provided private shrines even in comparatively impoverished Egypt.[5776] The variety of figurines available in Egypt (where we have the most abundant extant evidence) suggests that buyers had some measure of choice.[5777] Craftsmen forged or framed “some lamps and figurines” as a “miniature temple” both in and before the Roman period; this image would symbolize continuity between the home altar and the great temples, and “the common image of a god emerging from his or her temple or posed in its doorway . . . would recall and even invoke the festival appearance of the temple image” for sacred processions and the like.[5778] Such shrines, altars, and figurines were probably used in homes to confer the fertility of the temple procession.[5779] Given the monthly or twice-monthly processions to the temple, such objects could prove highly profitable to their sellers,[5780] especially if the articles were made of precious metals. People also prayed and sometimes sacrificed to statuettes (Apul. Apol. 61, 63).

At least some people or groups could afford expensive statues. Some ivory statues of Artemis have been found dating to about 700 B.C.E.[5781] About half a century after the incident described here, in 103/104 C.E., the Roman official Vibius Salutaris presented thirty-one gold and silver statuettes to Ephesus for public display, including nine statues of Artemis.[5782] Silver statues were not uncommon in antiquity,[5783] even though the silver in most was ultimately melted down for reuse.

SILVER WORKERS (19:24)

Silver working, Demetrius’s primary trade, was an important profession in Ephesus, with its own guild. The term ἀργυροκόπος, used by Luke here, appears in many Ephesian inscriptions; at least seven inscriptions in Die Inschriften von Ephesos mention this trade, and an eighth source has been published since then.[5784] The guild or assembly of the silversmiths is explicitly linked with the temple in I. Eph. 636.9–10: τὸ ἱερὸν συνέδριον τῶν ἀργυροκόπων.[5785] One of these silver workers was of unusually high status, being a νεωποιός—that is, on the board of wardens for the temple of Artemis.[5786] In general, metalsmiths were viewed as working in disgusting and uncomfortable settings, often in propped-up shanties, bowed down over their work because of low ceilings.[5787] Silversmiths’ work may reflect a higher overhead cost and hence greater capital and better conditions. In addition to normal metalwork, silversmiths used some minerals to polish the silver (Pliny E. N.H. 35.58.199).

Luke does not explicitly claim that making silver shrines was a common occupation; he explicitly claims “silver working” as Demetrius’s business, with perhaps a personal specialty in making these silver shrines (Acts 19:24). Nevertheless, the others who share his trade (as silver workers or, perhaps more generally, metalworkers) also risk economic loss from disrespect for the temple (19:25–27), and so it seems likely that a significant number of silver workers were engaged in work involving the goddess, which makes sense given Ephesus’s devotion to Artemis and even well-to-do tourists who knew her reputation.

Although Demetrius probably began with the silver workers, mobilizing this influential guild (see comment on Acts 19:25), he may well have appealed also to members of allied guilds residing in nearby districts (including copper workers who made shrines).[5788] If his colleagues include metalworkers who formed idols and not just silver workers (presumably not all of whom did produce deity images), it is easier to imagine a large market for such shrines and greater popular indignation.[5789] Another Pauline tradition mentions an enemy of Paul in Ephesus who is a copper worker (2 Tim 4:14).[5790]

Virtually all guilds and associations in the Greco-Roman world engaged in religious activity.[5791] These guilds’ banquets almost always included libations or sacrifice to a deity.[5792] When one guild of Syrian merchants in Delos naturally chose Poseidon (the chief sea deity) as their patron deity, they called themselves “the association of the Poseidoniasts of Beirut.”[5793] Sometimes, especially if the guild or association had a specifically religious purpose, it even met within a temple’s precincts.[5794] Guilds and associations often included a component of veneration toward the imperial family.[5795]

ATTESTATION FOR DEMETRIUS? (19:24)

We know of a Demetrius, son of Menophilus, who was also one of the wardens of the temple, probably in the mid- or late first century C.E. (I. Eph. 1578a). Some scholars have proposed that this might be the same individual that Luke mentions.[5796] In favor of identifying the two, we know that Luke’s Demetrius was very influential in the guild (Acts 19:24, end); he obviously cherished ties to the Artemis temple (19:27) and achieved at least informal leadership among silver workers who shared the same commitments (19:25, 28). Twelve νεωποιοί were appointed each year, and they supervised both votive offerings and (suggesting a measure of wealth) repairs in the temple.[5797] At least some of them were benefactors who used the post “as a stepping-stone in a civic career.”[5798]

In a city where the nouveau riche were advancing into the ranks of the older aristocracy (see comment on Acts 18:19), it would be conceivable for an artisan (or former artisan) to hold this rank. If a silver worker could also be a νεωποιός,[5799] it is possible that the silver worker is our Demetrius. If the same Demetrius is in view, Luke may not have chosen to emphasize how close to the power structures of the city the opposition originated.

Most scholars, however, are not persuaded, in part because the inscription’s date is debated (it may be later than the incident reported here).[5800] The date would not be a compelling problem so long as the inscription is not later than the first century; if Demetrius was young in 19:24, he would likely be even more influential a few decades later, especially if he could ride popularity achieved as a supporter of the city’s beloved Artemis temple.

The more compelling problem is that Demetrius was a common name in Ephesus; that we should know of one who happened to share the name Demetrius, among many who held this office, may well be no more than coincidence.[5801] Certainly, the early argument (originally used to connect the two) that Luke misinterpreted “temple warden” (νεωποιός or ναοποιός) in his source as “maker of shrines” (ποιῶν ναούς)[5802] is open to challenge,[5803] since we do know of shrine makers. In the final analysis, the current state of our data does not allow certainty in either direction.

ARTISANS AND TRADE GUILDS (19:25)

Gathering the silversmiths together would have required far less effort than most modern readers imagine. Members of various trades typically lived in particular sections of town, sections that often took their names from the trades that worked there.[5804] In Ephesus, the silversmiths’ shops were situated on what was later called Arkadiane Street (I. Eph. 547), a street that ran from the theater (see comment on Acts 19:29) to the harbor.[5805] Despite some economic competition,[5806] members of trades met together regularly for common meals (which invoked their patron deity, in this case Artemis) and other common interests (see discussion at Acts 18:3).[5807]

Local associations of artisans often lobbied or used patrons to apply political pressure to protect their business interests in a city; one historian who emphasizes this activism employs the example of Acts 19 as a case in point.[5808] Troubles in cities sometimes originated with guilds, which could organize workers; this was the case with the linen workers of Tarsus (Dio Chrys. Or. 34.21–23).[5809] By the early second century, even some voluntary fire brigades in Asia were believed to have disturbed the peace, requiring punitive action (Pliny Ep. 10.34.1).[5810] About a century after Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, the bakers’ union in a nearby city apparently went on strike, probably for economic reasons, and held meetings that led to riots and a city short of bread. The proconsul warned that he would punish any similar activity in the future (cf. Acts 19:38, 40).[5811]

Metalsmiths could also appear in such conflicts (cf. 2 Tim 4:14, suggesting other hostile metalworkers in Ephesus). Dio Chrysostom, whose city building projects replaced and improved what he considered unpleasant workshops for metalsmiths, aroused serious criticism from some of those metalsmiths (Or. 40.8–9).

Rome sometimes restricted associations, including guilds, “because they were suspected of fomenting the kind of unrest described” here.[5812] Thus these craftspeople provide enemies useful for Luke’s apologetic. (This is not, however, to suggest that they are fabricated, since Jewish accusers would have fit the larger pattern of Luke’s narrative better. Nor is Luke, though interested in Theophilus’s class, ready to sacrifice his narrative’s appeal to all laborers [cf. Acts 9:43; 18:3; 20:34–35; Luke 5:2–10].)

The elite usually looked down on artisans (though apparently less so in Ephesus than in some other cities; see comment on Acts 18:3, 19), but artisans sought upward mobility; the resulting status inconsistency may have accordingly increased their sensitivity to economic challenges.[5813] Economic complaints of some guilds would become serious for the entire city, however, if connected with the temple of Artemis (see comment on Acts 19:27), which had close ties with the upwardly mobile Asian city’s economy.[5814]

ECONOMICS IN EPHESUS

Economic interests were particularly important in Ephesus, the most prominent city of what may have been the wealthiest province in the empire (see comment on Acts 18:19). Around 86 B.C.E., the aristocrats of Ephesus were forced to pay for Sulla’s troops (an estimated 120 million drachmas) in addition to other monetary punishments.[5815] Interest payments required by Italian bankers drove their indemnity to 720 million drachmas in just thirteen years; many bankrupt provincials turned to piracy (cf. I. Eph. 5), and local economies were drained.[5816]

The Augustan era, however, offered new prosperity and a building boom.[5817] By the late 60s of the first century, Asia was notably wealthy (Tac. Hist. 2.6), and by the late first century, its wealth was attracting exploitation by corrupt Roman administrations (Tac. Agr. 6).[5818] Ephesus was growing rapidly, and some native-born Ephesians perhaps resented immigrants such as Paul (though perhaps not often, since immigrants added to the workers’ prosperity); what is clear is that the citizens would resent a new teacher challenging local traditions for which the city was famous.

ECONOMICS AND THE ARTEMIS TEMPLE

A significant portion of the city’s wealth was connected to the Artemis temple,[5819] which Baugh calls “the central economic power in the city.”[5820] Temples often held deposits for safekeeping, as ancient banks;[5821] they were considered particularly safe because of their inviolability, and most people expected serious divine judgments against temple robbers (see comment on Acts 19:37).[5822] Artemis’s temple was also a bank (Dio Chrys. Or. 31.54) on which many people throughout the province depended.[5823] The very prominence of Ephesus’s Artemis temple attracted not only local but also international depositors, including kings and nations.[5824] In the rest of the city as well, bankers were prominent; thus we read of the “Portico of the Bankers” (I. Eph. 3065); elsewhere, whereas three toilets were reserved for bankers, only one each was reserved for other guilds (I. Eph. 454).[5825]

The temple also owned both “land and water estates in the city’s extensive territorium,” most of the income from which was used to pay officials and keep up the temple.[5826] It controlled about seventy-seven thousand acres of farmland and probably more whose boundary stones have not yet been found;[5827] wine may have been a major produce item there.[5828] The temple even had a rent office, probably for sacred lands (I. Eph. 1577A, 3050); a fishing customs office, possibly though not certainly associated with Artemis, was also built in the 50s (I. Eph. 20).[5829] By the mid-second century C.E., fees were five thousand drachmas per priestess of Artemis per year.[5830] Naturally, the temple became wealthy,[5831] and this revenue provided an economic boon to the city.

The temple’s revenues went mostly to the temple itself but also could be used to pave streets (as in 23/22 B.C.E., in I. Eph. 2.459);[5832] when other benefactors were unavailable, the temple also underwrote the cost of a local gymnasium.[5833] The temple drew tourist trade and generated income for those providing votive offerings and other paraphernalia related to the cult. Given the temple’s connection with the local economy, Paul’s adverse effect on the local religious-souvenir or votive industry would have larger implications in the city,[5834] implications that could eventually embarrass his patrons (Acts 19:31).

The temple had a board that supervised its maintenance, festivals, and offerings.[5835] Unlike Rhodians, the officials of the Ephesian temple kept records of its deposits (Dio Chrys. Or. 31.54); the Ephesians would rather strip the ornaments from Artemis’s statue than touch those sacred deposits (31.55, 65). This reputation for trustworthiness was one reason the financial improprieties that came to light about a decade before Paul’s ministry there were so scandalous.

In this episode of 44 C.E., the proconsul criticized the Artemisium for inappropriate expenditures from Artemis’s treasury, including “rearing slave infants at the goddess’ expense by consecrating them to her.”[5836] He criticized the temple especially for impropriety in the sale of priesthoods; the problem was not simply selling priesthoods (a common enough practice)[5837] but doing this “without regard to blood-stock: the highest bidder will be successful even if he is not from the right sort of family.”[5838]

Amid calls for reimbursement of the mismanaged funds for the priesthoods, the temple treasury was thus a matter of public concern,[5839] and devotees of the goddess would have special reason in this period to zealously guard the temple’s reputation. The proconsul had acted to guard the honor of the goddess and her temple,[5840] and Demetrius now may have sought to adopt a similar role.

CHALLENGING ECONOMIC INTERESTS (19:25)

When the early Christian movement, by preaching or lifestyle, challenged vested economic interests, it stirred hostility. Later a Roman governor is concerned with the negative impact the spread of the Christian movement is having on local temples and the sale of fodder for sacrificial animals (Pliny Ep. 10.96.9–10).[5841] The same phenomenon of pagan opposition due to the gospel’s economic impact appears in Acts 16:19 (the only other passage in Acts employing ἐργασία; for Luke’s narrative emphasis, see comment there).[5842] Befitting Ephesus’s prestige, however, this riot takes the opposition to a more dramatic level.

In later apocryphal accounts as well, pagans whose own interests are jeopardized act against the gospel (Acts Paul 3.15, when Thamyris’s fiancée, Thecla, chooses celibacy).[5843] Similarly, pagan Meccans later feared that Muhammad was making converts, threatening their economic position by reducing the wealth they received from the annual pilgrimage to the Kaaba;[5844] the church hierarchy reacted fiercely to Luther’s challenge to the practice of indulgences, by which German peasants helped foot the bill for Renaissance art in Italy.[5845] Challenges to indigenous religious structures’ economics have generated objections in missionary situations in recent centuries.[5846]

Although, for Luke and his audience, such pecuniary motives may appear base, they would be aware that Rome took such economic matters seriously.[5847] For many, economic interests run deeper than religious commitments; when economic interests are inseparably intertwined with religion, resistance will be intense.[5848] Certainly no line in antiquity forced a separation between commerce and religious devotion.[5849]

Probably without knowing Paul firsthand, Demetrius may have heard enough from some who had heard him or heard of him (Acts 19:10, 17, 20). Local patriotism, economic interest, and religious zeal could combine to breed resentment against Paul and his status as an accepted local sage as well as against the intellectual climate that tolerated him. Because the city clerk has some understanding of how the riot started (19:38), Demetrius may have already approached city leaders about their toleration of a local teacher whose “philosophy” countered religious devotion (alternatively, Paul’s allies knew the source, presumably from Demetrius’s history of complaints). Demetrius may have felt that direct action on the streets could force a change,[5850] and he may have been right: public officials who counted on popular support for their own political careers would not want to openly sponsor Paul after such a riot (see comment on Acts 19:31).

(2) Speech Defending Artemis (19:25b–27)

Luke presents Demetrius as a rabble-rouser in this speech but also presents the speech as containing an element of truth. Paul does deny that handmade deities are true. Still, this no more makes him a blasphemer than it made other Jews blasphemers (19:37). Nor are Demetrius’s economic concerns purely paranoid; Luke believes that Paul’s ministry is flourishing, and is optimistic that the gospel will spread enough to have an impact on local religion. Indeed, it would eventually even become a serious threat to the hegemony of Artemis and other deities, but only long after Luke’s own day.

DEMETRIUS’S SPEECH (19:25–27)

Tannehill rightly points out that the structure of the narrative invites comparison between Demetrius’s speech and that of the town clerk. Demetrius’s “speech incites the riot”; the clerk’s speech “ends it.” Demetrius considers Paul a danger to the Artemis cult; the clerk denies it, indirectly answering Demetrius. In a sense, Demetrius takes Paul and his faith more seriously than the clerk’s words do. Conversely, the clerk’s view coincides with the narrator’s when he declares Paul’s companions innocent and the riot unjustifiable (cf. 17:5–9; 24:5, 12). Neither Demetrius nor the clerk fully represents the narrator’s views, but each represents a part.[5851] Neither Luke nor his audience would have yet recognized the historic irony that Demetrius proved correct: the spread of Paul’s movement ultimately did supplant the worship of Artemis of Ephesus. Christians in later centuries even erased Artemis’s name from some local inscriptions.[5852]

Luke indicates at the end of 19:24 that Demetrius had influence with his fellow craftsmen because of his economic contributions to their trade.[5853] This may have involved some patronage for the guild or perhaps the sort of publicity for the trade that he is portrayed as offering here (19:25–27). Guilds generally handled their own business, including membership qualifications and leadership selection.[5854] Although craftsmen and guild members rarely entered the ranks of the elite (at least in most ancient cities), they represented “a range of possibilities of wealth and status.”[5855]

Whether based on direct knowledge or on natural assumptions about an artisan that provide verisimilitude, Luke’s portrayal of Demetrius’s speech is reasonable.[5856] Demetrius’s speech betrays little rhetorical sophistication, and its agendas suit what ancient readers expected from demagogues.[5857] Even if Demetrius was well-to-do, he probably lacked significant rhetorical training[5858] and may well have had less than Luke (who was at least educated).[5859] Appeal to pecuniary interests rather than truth might fit rhetorical interest in pathos, but philosophers attributed such interests to stereotypical sophists, whom they despised. Demetrius appeals to local religious feeling while, like some populist rhetoricians, avoiding the inconvenience of offering proofs for Paul’s guilt (apart from the assumption that his monotheism demands it). (Then as today, rhetoric appealed to religious feelings when useful, e.g., Quint. Decl. 323.1–2.) Yet not only demagogues but more conventional forensic orators were often ready to whip up indignation against their targets when it was useful for their cause.[5860]

A later source reports that some orators sought to learn the distinctly “Ionian” form of declamation (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.27.619), which was concentrated especially at Ephesus and considered inferior to Attic rhetoric (2.18.598). But Demetrius’s speech fares no better in this form of rhetoric than in any other. Of course, Luke’s presentation of an inferior speech hostile to Paul favors Luke’s narrative purposes. Ignorant men, some ancients complained, spoke with peculiar force, lacking the nuance derived from concern for facts.[5861]

The question of who might have reported to Luke Demetrius’s speech (or, more likely, its gist) is the sort that ancient readers may have asked about academic historians (who often specify their sources) but less often about popular historians such as Luke.[5862] Nevertheless, if someone did ask the question, two of the most likely guesses to be inferred from Luke’s narrative would be that, given the rapid spread of the Christian message in Ephesus (Acts 19:10, 17, 20), a hearer may have been later converted or that, as word had reached the town clerk, the gist of Demetrius’s complaint would have also become available to Paul’s patrons or other contacts.

Another possibility is that the charges eventually came to the courts; that Paul faced legal conflict in Ephesus is probable despite Luke’s avoidance of the issue at 20:16 (see comment there). On the historical level, if Paul was forced to leave Ephesus for reasons that resembled the charges in 17:7 (for which he fled Thessalonica, 17:10), his forced departure may have involved charges in which Demetrius was one of the accusers, or delatores. Historically, it is unlikely that Paul openly attacked the Artemis cult (Rom 2:22), but it is not implausible that the complaint raised by Demetrius here was later officially submitted to a court (Acts 19:37–38).

The question of Luke’s source here is a reasonable one for modern readers with historical interest: in antiquity, even academic historians could craft speeches as they believed most plausible, but they normally depended on sources for the basic gist or agenda where such sources were available to them.[5863] That Paul blasphemed the goddess (cf. 19:37) may have been part of the charge leading to his trouble in the city; the economic motives may be inferred from Demetrius’s profession.

For “men” (especially common in Acts),[5864] see comment on Acts 2:14. Demetrius’s “you know” was a familiar expression (see comment on Acts 20:18) and one frequent in speeches in Acts (10:28, 37, 38; 15:7; 20:18, 34). (Though the verb appeared most recently in the speech of an evil spirit, the frequency of Luke’s use of the verb precludes the assumption of a connection.)

DENYING HANDMADE DEITIES (19:26)

The dismissal of all deities whose images were formed by human hands (cf. also Paul’s language in 17:24) challenged all the cults of Ephesus (see introduction to this section for these cults), though it is the cult of Artemis that Demetrius finds most relevant. Ephesian inscriptions attest the worship of Zeus,[5865] Apollo (I. Eph. 1203),[5866] Asclepius (105; 1253–54), Athena (1260), Demeter (1210), Dionysus (106; 1211; 1267–68; 1270), Hygeia (1212), Isis and Serapis (1213),[5867] Pan (520), Poseidon (1229), and Tyche (Fate, 1237). The inscriptions also reveal knowledge of Attis (I. Eph. 516A) and Hermes (515). The city included many statues of Meter (the mother goddess)—that is, Cybele—and of Hecate and abundant examples of Aphrodite.[5868] Sometime in the first century C.E., Ephesians built their prytaneion, a sort of city hall, probably near or over an earlier one. In this building, Ephesians kept “the sacred fire of Hestia Boulaia, goddess of the hearth.”[5869]

Demetrius’s mention of turning away people “not only in Ephesus but rather in nearly the whole province of Asia” is hyperbole (cf. 17:6);[5870] compare the wording of one novel: “Everyone in Ephesus sought his company, and in the rest of Asia as well.”[5871] But it is understandable hyperbole: Luke has already informed his audience that Paul’s message has reached all Asia (cf. Acts 19:10, 20). For appeal to eyewitness testimonies such as “you see and hear” (cf. also “you know” in 19:25), see comment at Acts 2:32–33; 4:18–22.

Even before this time, Paul’s ministry has been subject to slander (Rom 3:8; 2 Cor 6:8); but while Demetrius puts a slant on his information, it includes truth. Although Paul has not desecrated Artemis’s temple (Acts 19:37), Demetrius feels that he has blasphemed Artemis and spoken against the temple. One may compare Jesus’s challenge to the temple establishment in Luke 19:45–46; the charge that Stephen blasphemed against God and the temple (Acts 6:13–14); and the charge that Paul desecrated the Jerusalem temple (21:28).[5872] The difference in this Ephesian case is that Paul does not believe in the deity in question.

Even critique of a system’s abuse could lead to charges of opposing it, and Paul regarded the core of pagan religion, not merely its abuse, as dishonoring the true God. But centuries of earlier Diaspora Jewish apologists had provided him the vocabulary to critique paganism without slandering it and to invite people to the true God without inciting violence against temples (see comment on Acts 19:37). In public debate, it was often wiser to avoid openly mocking one’s opponent with derogatory titles, instead depicting his behavior in such a manner as to invite reproach on him (Rhet. Alex. 35, 1441b.16–20).[5873] But speaking diplomatically does not necessarily leave one’s convictions unclear; preaching monotheism implies a view inconsistent with polytheism, even if the preacher remains gracious to all.

In contrast to Jewish defenders of the Jerusalem temple, Demetrius may rightly understand an element of Paul’s message: Paul indeed did preach against idols (Acts 14:15–17; 17:24–25, 29). (This is also true of the Paul of the epistles.)[5874] Pace some interpreters, Luke portrays Paul’s apologetic at Athens not as a mistake but as a successful model that he has developed more successfully in Ephesus (see comment on Acts 19:9).[5875] Although Demetrius states Paul’s opposition to images negatively, his statement reinforces the positive view of Paul for Luke’s ideal audience.[5876] Although Demetrius exaggerates Paul’s success (see discussion below), his words inform Luke’s audience that Paul’s monotheistic mission, working on a small level in 14:15–17 and 17:22–31, is now impacting a major cultural center.

Luke also, however, portrays Demetrius as obfuscating to present Paul the critic as if he were Paul the temple defiler (cf. 19:37), when the primary basis of Demetrius’s critique is his own economic self-interest. For Luke’s audience, Demetrius’s own words convict him:[5877] no pagan intellectual would have described miniature shrines (or even idols) as gods themselves, in the pejorative language of “gods made with hands.”[5878] In Luke’s speech, Demetrius adopts the apologetic language of his gods’ monotheistic critics[5879] and so furthers Luke’s perspective (cf. 7:41, 48; 17:24; see discussion at those passages).

THREATENING THE ARTEMIS CULT (19:27)

The biblical hapax legomenon ἀπελεγμός can mean “criticism pertaining to discreditable behavior” or “ill-repute” (the cognate verb, ἀπελέγχω, can mean “refute thoroughly”).[5880] Demetrius warns of a threat to honor arranged “in an ascending hierarchy of values”: the metalworkers’ trade, the temple, and Artemis herself. By connecting his guild’s interests and honor with the honor of Artemis, Demetrius appeals “ ‘to higher loyalty,’ a common tactic in legal argument.”[5881] His rhetoric at this point likely stirs indignation.[5882] From an ancient polytheistic perspective, failure to maintain deities’ cult could compromise their goodwill (see, e.g., Symm. Ep. 1.46.2).

Though Demetrius is hardly a reliable character from Luke’s perspective, his claim would be effective in Ephesus. In a culture where honor and shame were primary values and threats to Artemis’s honor were punished harshly (see introduction to this section), Demetrius’s warning would stir hearers.[5883] One may compare the second-century C.E. hexameter oracle in which Artemis’s priests warn of judgment on the city if it neglects the temple.[5884]

Artemis is here called θεά, “goddess,” as we would expect,[5885] but the mixed form ἡ θεός in 19:37 was employed in Ephesus even more frequently (see comment on Acts 19:37). Whereas the Ephesians usually called Artemis ἡ θεός, they used θεά most often in the sort of formulaic phrase that appears here; Luke thus gets the language precisely right, reflecting accurate knowledge or a minimally altered source.[5886] The phrase “great goddess Artemis,” used here (cf. also “great is Artemis” in 19:28, 34), reflects conventional language in Ephesus (cf. also comment on Acts 19:28), for example, in I. Eph. 27.12–13 (using the masculine noun).[5887] The phrase appears outside the Ephesian inscriptions in Xen. Eph. Anthia 1.11.5, but again from an author who knew Ephesus well firsthand.[5888]

The claim that not only Asia but also “all the world” worshiped the Ephesian Artemis reflects accurately the perspective of an Ephesian worshiper of Artemis. The evidence for worship of the Ephesian Artemis throughout the Mediterranean world is considerable.[5889] Even by the late nineteenth century, scholars knew of thirty-three sites for the cult from Syria to Spain.[5890] If Pausanias can employ the hyperbole of “all cities” worshiping the Ephesian Artemis (Paus. 4.31), we can perhaps excuse Demetrius for making the same claim.[5891] Already in Hellenistic times, Mysteries of the Ephesian Artemis were spreading in central Asia Minor.[5892]

Paul probably knew about “the Ephesian Artemis” in Corinth, long before his arrival in Ephesus; her statue stood along with some other deity statues in Corinth’s marketplace (2.2.6). The statue had been there for a long time; Pausanias attributes the cult of the Ephesian Artemis in Achaia to distant antiquity, earlier than Pindar’s attribution to the Amazons (7.2.6–7).[5893]

The cult spread deliberately, through “missionary” merchants devoted to promoting their goddess’s distinctive cult. Centuries before Paul, the classical military leader and historian Xenophon took the cult back to Greece with him (Xen. Anab. 5.3.12). More explicitly, Artemis in a dream commanded one of her devoted women to travel with the Phocaeans, who founded Massilia; the woman then became priestess of the Ephesium, the temple of Ephesian Artemis at Massilia (Strabo 4.1.4). Although the Artemis cult was by no means monotheistic or exclusivistic the way early Christians were, Trebilco may be right to speak of the inevitable clash “between two expansionist religions.”[5894]

Although Demetrius’s hyperbole about the goddess being known throughout the world may be understandable, it passes understandable bounds when he presents Paul’s teaching as threatening that the world, which now worships Artemis, will soon regard the cult as worthless.[5895] Later Christendom had precisely this effect, but even Luke’s own optimistic eschatology and vision of the future could not have anticipated it happening before Jesus’s return.

The patent exaggeration in Demetrius’s claims provides a foil for Paul’s own rhetoric in the book. Whereas Luke repeatedly presents Paul’s logic as brilliant, his adversaries use emotionally charged hyperbole to stir crowds: Paul’s circle “turns the world upside down” (Acts 17:6), leads to the world despising the Artemis temple (19:27), or stirs up Jews to sedition around the world (24:5). The baselessness of such charges, exposed by the context of Luke’s narrative, undercuts the opposition’s charges by a sort of reductio ad absurdum.[5896] Underlining the charges’ absurdity is important for Luke (cf. 24:5), especially if Demetrius later did bring charges in court (19:38).[5897] No one would be surprised by such rhetoric, however; orators could deceive with their audience’s complicity if audiences (like Demetrius’s fellow silver workers) profited from the deception (Hermog. Method 19.435).

THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS

Artemis’s temple in Ephesus, known as the Artemisium (Ἀρτεμίσιον), had been famous half a millennium before Paul,[5898] and its recognition continued in the first century and later.[5899] The shrine was so well known that a later writer with an audience outside Ephesus could simply mention “the temple” near Ephesus and expect his audience to know that he meant Artemis’s temple (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.23.605). An inscription from about 44 C.E., about a decade before Paul’s arrival, is representative of the general attitude: Artemis’s temple is the supreme adornment of the province of Asia.[5900] Short lists of the ancient world’s most famous shrines typically associated that of Artemis with Ephesus.[5901]

Apparently, work on the Artemisium began in the late eighth century B.C.E., but contributions from much of Asia (with Persian help as well) in the mid-sixth century B.C.E. expanded it significantly.[5902] The temple was first designed by an architect named Chersiphron, then expanded (Strabo 14.1.22). When a certain Herostratus burned it, the citizens refused Alexander’s offer of money, wanting to use their own resources to rebuild it (14.1.22).[5903] They used the architect who built Alexandria, and they filled the altar with expensive art (14.1.23).[5904] The temple was destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly. The new prosperity that Augustus’s reign provided for the province spurred the construction of many new monuments in the first century.[5905]

Cities sacrificed to produce splendid temples for the cities’ honor,[5906] but apart from Jerusalem, no city in the eastern empire had a temple like Ephesus’s Artemis temple. With a platform about 130 by 70 meters,[5907] the Artemisium was around “four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens.”[5908] It had 127 marble columns, sixty feet high and more than six feet thick; 36 of them were sculptured and overlaid with gold.[5909] It is not surprising, then, that it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as most commentators note.[5910] In its center was a colonnaded rectangle 31 by 43.5 feet (9.5 by 13.3 m.), in which archaeologists discovered a pre-Roman hoard of jewelry.[5911]

The Selinus River flowed past it (Strabo 8.7.5),[5912] and in a general way it was said to be near the sea (14.1.20, near the harbor Panormus; Pliny E. N.H. 2.87). It was about a mile and a half northeast of the city proper,[5913] and so a later benefactor built a stoa from the city to the temple lest worshipers be deterred by inclement weather such as rain (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.23.605).[5914] For its wealth and its role as a bank, see comment on Acts 19:25.

IV. A RIOT FOR ARTEMIS (19:28–34)

Demetrius’s speech, portrayed as demagoguery, achieves its desired effect: rallying not only the silver workers but ultimately also a larger proportion of the population against Paul’s religiously “subversive” activity. But although most of the crowd know they are defending Artemis, not many of them know anything about the particular accusations against Paul and his monotheistic colleagues (19:32).

(1) Acclaiming Artemis (19:28)

Whether or not Demetrius considered his speech finished within the narrative world, it is complete for Luke’s purposes. Like some other ancient authors, Luke often uses the technique of intentional interruption (cf. Acts 4:1; 7:54; 17:32; 23:7; 26:24; esp. 2:36; 10:44; 22:22).[5915] He earlier depicted another lynch mob as full of θυμός (Luke 4:28, his only other use of the term). What begins as an incendiary speech (Acts 19:25–27) quickly escalates into mob violence (19:29).[5916]

Urban mobs were a frequent novelistic device,[5917] but novelists could use them to good effect precisely because they reflected social reality.[5918] Cicero recognized that Greeks could easily be stirred to unrest, and he distrusted the Hellenistic Asian conduct of public assemblies as capitulation to the mob and the shouts of the ignorant.[5919] Scenes of mobs and violence are just as characteristic of Hellenistic historiography as they are of novels; scholars provide many examples from relevant sources.[5920] Josephus reports an assembly that nearly became a riot in Tiberias but was dissolved by the Sabbath (Life 279). Paul himself experienced public sufferings before this incident, though his letters do not specifically distinguish mob actions from listed actions by officials or private individuals (1 Cor 4:9–13; 2 Cor 1:9; 4:9–11; 6:4–5; 11:23–26; Gal 5:11; 1 Thess 2:2).

Many joined in the shouting to defend Artemis’s honor without exact knowledge of the issue at hand (Acts 19:32).[5921] That a disturbance would spread so quickly, and with such confusion, is not surprising in this rapidly growing city. The population density of the insulae, or tenements, of Rome has been estimated at two hundred people per acre; it may have been less in Ephesus, but the figures illustrate the sort of crowded conditions that would contribute to rapid reactions in the case of unrest.[5922] This population density appears in the modern West only in industrial slums.[5923] The sort of disorder that could occur in ancient cities could occasionally even turn deadly; when a later emperor was throwing golden cups for people to catch, some trampled others to death (Hdn. 5.6.10).[5924]

Luke reports positive acclamations in Luke 2:14 and 19:38 but a negative mob cry in the passion (“Crucify him,” 23:21); the acclamation here is positive in form, but its object is pagan and its function is hostility against God’s agents. Four times Luke describes Artemis as “great” (μεγάλη), twice (here and in Acts 19:34) in acclamations, where it was in common use.[5925] The cry that Luke attributes to the crowd fits what we know of ancient shouts of acclamation in general;[5926] particular acclamations applied to particular deities.[5927] A leader might shout out a slogan, such as “Down with the Christians!” to which the assembly might respond with a prepared response (such as “Down with the Epicureans!”).[5928] Acclamations could be spontaneous, or they could be formulaic as in the cultic acclamation here.[5929] Shouting in unison, as here, “was often political and could be arranged through guilds.”[5930]

The particular acclamation here also fits rather precisely the local evidence for Ephesus. An Ephesian author could portray an Ephesian woman as crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” (Xen. Eph. Anthia 1.11.5).[5931] The epithet “of the Ephesians” specified Artemis as she was worshiped and mythologized in Ephesus in particular;[5932] the title “Artemis Ephesia” appears elsewhere (OGIS 455) and might even be used to personify the city.[5933] (The use of the article with Artemis here and in Acts 19:34 is probably not just to specify the Ephesian Artemis; it sometimes appears in other acclamations—for example, “Great is [ὁ] Asclepius!” in Ael. Arist. Or. 24.)[5934] The people of the crowd shout and chant the acclamation for two hours in Acts 19:34.

(2) The Mob in the Theater (19:29)

That word spread quickly should not surprise us (cf., more positively, 19:10, 20); the population density was high, and conversation with neighbors could spread word quickly in the cities.[5935] Moreover, the silversmiths apparently worked in a business district that ran between the harbor and the theater, undoubtedly thronged with people during the workday.[5936] For the rapid spread of rumors, see further comment on Acts 19:10. Though urban and somewhat diverse, many of Ephesus’s people probably remained sufficiently “collectivist” in their sentiments to support other citizens with a serious grievance regardless of the confusion.[5937]

That the crowd acted with one mind (ὁμοθυμαδόν), albeit confused (19:32), contrasts them with God’s church (see comment on Acts 2:46; cf. ἐκκλησία in 19:32). It connects them much more explicitly with the enraged Jewish mob who killed Stephen; 7:57 is the only other use of ὁρμάω in Acts (it also appears in Luke 8:33), and its occurrence alongside Luke’s other usage of ὁμοθυμαδόν for a violent action is not likely coincidence. This connection builds suspense but also implies a Lukan theological point: violent opponents of the Christian movement, whether monotheists or polytheists, are acting irrationally.

EN ROUTE TO THE THEATER

Given our basic (though quite limited) knowledge of the layout of ancient Ephesus, the unrest may have started not far from where Paul’s companions were or the theater was. A major street ran from the harbor east to the theater; it is today called Arkadiane (or Arcadius) Street after the later emperor who restored it, but it follows the same course as the Hellenistic street.[5938] Arkadiane Street was more than 1,700 feet (500 m.) long; the street itself was 36 feet (11 m.) across; in its later, finished form, it also had lighted 16-foot (5 m.) colonnades on each side.[5939] Given the shops along this street, it is not impossible that the silversmiths began their meeting here and moved east to the theater.[5940] Arkadiane Street runs to the north of the theater, in front of which runs Marble Street. Aside from whatever members of a crowd they may have recruited on this busy street, they would have needed only a brief detour to gather more. An earlier suggested venue for the silver workers’ meeting—that the silversmiths’ shops lay in the agora itself—would also have fit the scenario in Acts 19.[5941] If the shops were located in the commercial agora, they were not far from the theater—on the northeast corner of the agora. But the agora was not a long walk, in any case, from any point along the street between the harbor and the theater.

It has also been proposed that the site of Tyrannus’s hall, where Paul taught, was the auditorium,[5942] on the agora’s southeast corner, providing easy access to Paul’s traveling companions. The distance from the auditorium to the edge of the theater was only about the length of the theater itself, and so it would have been easy enough to seize Paul’s traveling companions Gaius and Aristarchus from Paul’s well-known lecture place, right by the commercial agora. As in Acts 17:6, however, the mob could not find Paul himself—which perhaps spared his life. But it now seems likely that the auditorium was used as a courtroom;[5943] with the right patrons (see comment on Acts 19:31), Paul might have used it during hours when it was not in public use, but in our current state of information, it seems safer not to presume that we can know where the hall of Tyrannus was located (see comment on Acts 19:9). The auditorium was only one of many ancient buildings and is not the most probable site for Tyrannus’s hall.

More certain and thus more relevant here, the crowded commercial agora was just west of Marble Street;[5944] wherever the unrest started, the agora near the theater was an ideal location for recruiting large numbers of people.[5945] It starts about fifty meters south of the south end of the theater, on the other side of Marble Street. Marble Street passed the agora to the north, very quickly reaching the theater.[5946] The theater was perhaps 250 meters across the front, and it was less than 250 meters from Arkadiane Street to the commercial agora.[5947] That a crowd stirred in the agora would be pulled into the nearby theater is the most plausible explanation for how they could end up at the site for public meetings; many of those who gathered might assume that those gathering them did so legally, as an emergency meeting of the city assembly (cf. 19:32).[5948] But even when crowds lacked the official right to gather, they “often behaved as though they were meeting in assembly” when they gathered in theaters.[5949]

Some suggest that the theater, in addition to hosting plays and civic assemblies, could have hosted periodic guild meetings.[5950] Even more important for explaining the influx of Ephesians outside the silversmiths’ guild, it would also be a natural venue for worshipers of Artemis to gather.[5951] An inscription at the theater’s south entrance traces the route of the yearly procession from Artemis’s temple into Ephesus.[5952] The temple was nearly 2 kilometers northeast from the theater if one traveled in a straight line; but the route from the Artemis temple was more roundabout (perhaps to cover more of the city or to make the line longer and accommodate more people). The procession entered Ephesus’s Magnesian Gate, more than 2 kilometers south of the temple; it would then follow a street for 1.5 or perhaps 2 kilometers to the theater on the northeast. Afterward the procession would leave the Coressus Gate to head back to the Artemis temple, about 2 kilometers to the northeast. In the second century, processions accompanied all civic events, that is, roughly every two weeks; after the imperial images, the processions included nine groups of statues, each one including Artemis.[5953]

Schematic of Ephesus

Reproduced from Archaeology & the New Testament by John McRay (© 1991), published by Baker Academic.

THE THEATER

Ephesus’s theater was the city’s official meeting place (cf. 19:39 and comment there).[5954] In free cities, a public assembly (ἐκκλησία; cf. 19:32) could gather in the theater (τὸ θέατρον) to decide an issue.[5955] Such theaters would be used for official gatherings, including for publicly reading imperial edicts.[5956] Greek assemblies did not all meet in theaters, but Athens, which had long used the theater of Dionysus as its place of assembly, provided the standard model.[5957] Because Greeks, unlike Romans, sat in assemblies, theaters offered a useful location, often the only one with sufficient seating capacity.[5958] The location of Ephesus’s theater is significant, at a cross section between commercial and political interests.[5959] Apparently, two large statues of Artemis stood in the nearby town hall,[5960] and she was undoubtedly honored no less in the theater, where we have the record of statues of Artemis being fitted on inscribed bases in 103 or 104 C.E.[5961] Most relevant is that the silversmiths’ shops were along Arkadiane Street near the theater (I. Eph. 547).[5962] This street, paved with marble, was 36 feet (ca. 11 m.) wide and extended 1,735 feet (ca. .33 mi., or well over .5 km.) from the theater to the harbor; the colonnade on each side of the street housed shops.[5963]

The claim of confusion helps emphasize the demagogic nature of Paul’s opposition (an important apologetic point; cf. 24:5).[5964] That the “city” was filled with confusion and rushed into the theater is hyperbole; the highest estimates of the theater’s seating (see below) would accommodate only a quarter (and the likelier estimates, only one-fifth) of the estimated residents in Ephesus at this time. It may have accommodated most of the citizens (who were by definition also male and free) able to vote, but this is not a lawful assembly gathering to vote but a mob gathering in the largest venue near the town hall. Though it is possible that more crammed in than could be accommodated by the usual seating capacity (many would have been standing), we read of no one being trampled, and if the stage had already supplanted part of the orchestra area,[5965] there was less space below the seats to stand (otherwise the speakers might not have prevailed from the platform). It is not even clear that the theater was full; the mob was likely several thousand, gathered as the artisans moved down Arkadiane Street toward the theater or gathered especially in the nearby agora, but need not have directly and literally involved a majority of the population.

Most scholars estimate the seating capacity of the theater at 24,000 or 24,500, with three tiers, each including twenty-two rows.[5966] The capacity may have been slightly lower (perhaps about 20,000) during the events described here; the theater’s expansion was not completed until the early second century.[5967] It was already being expanded in this period, however, perhaps during the time Paul was there.[5968] This construction occurred under Nero to match the city’s growing population.[5969] When complete, its expansion made it “the largest theater in the ancient world.”[5970] In that final form, the theater was 154 meters (ca. 500 ft.) wide and its auditorium 38 meters (ca. 125 ft.) high; it “was built into the western slope of Mt. Pion.”[5971] At some point the orchestra area was reduced, advancing the stage area closer to the audience,[5972] whose vast size would have otherwise made hearing difficult.

“Impromptu” gatherings also could occur in theaters, where people were wont to gather (Philo Flacc. 41); Philostratus later claims such a gathering in Ephesus (Vit. Apoll. 4.10).[5973] In an inscription from Cnidus, the people were confused and spontaneously rushed into the theater.[5974] Chariton depicts an entire crowd, functioning as a single character, gathering to the public assembly (ἐκκλησίαν) in the theater (θέατρον) (Chaer. 8.7.1). Although theaters were used for assemblies (see comment on Acts 19:39), they were also used for riots; for example, some cities had witnessed Jewish-Gentile conflicts escalating into violence in theaters.[5975] A riotous gathering, however, was punishable (see comment on Acts 19:40).

In a letter that he wrote from Ephesus before the time depicted here (1 Cor 16:8), Paul compares his own suffering to being exhibited as the last act in the theater, an act reserved for the deaths of condemned criminals (4:9).[5976] He also writes of having fought wild beasts in the theater in Ephesus (15:32). Although originally built to display drama, theaters expanded their repertoire to include musical and athletic contests, and by this period, they catered also to the tastes of those who desired real blood.[5977] Wild-beast shows were standard fare in such theaters.[5978]

Paul almost certainly speaks figuratively of his own conflicts with such beasts, however; those who fought them as condemned criminals normally did not survive to write letters about it afterward.[5979] “Beasts” was a familiar derogatory title that intellectuals gave to those ruled by their passions or otherwise not living in accordance with reason and what is right;[5980] the designation was an obvious one because humans were supposed to be smarter than animals.[5981] Because Paul wrote this letter sometime before leaving Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8), it is extremely unlikely that he refers even figuratively to the incident depicted in this chapter. His comment does, however, both reveal that Paul had been facing dangerous opposition in Ephesus and indicate that when Paul wished to enter the theater (Acts 19:30), he was well aware of what crowds were capable of relishing there.

SEIZING PAUL’S COMPANIONS

Luke does not pause to clarify how the crowd came by possession of Gaius and Aristarchus.[5982] It is possible that Demetrius’s colleagues found them near the school of Tyrannus (or some other place that Paul and his school were known to frequent) before the incident erupted into a riot. (Accusers in private lawsuits might have to ensure that the accused showed up for court, though it does not appear that Demetrius has a court date, and the charges concern public rather than private interest.)

It is also possible that some of those who knew that the charges were against Paul grabbed his companions (again, possibly from a place they were known to frequent). Again it is possible, though probably less likely, that the two tried to intervene in the riot as Paul tried to do later (19:30–31). Luke’s other most relevant use of the verb συναρπάζω (6:12) suggests deliberate, violent apprehension[5983] (though this might not completely rule out seizing one already present).[5984] This implication fits Luke’s portrayal of the entire assault on Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. Luke portrays the motives of Paul’s detractors as particularly mercenary (19:24–25) and as not sincere. When people resorted to violence and assault rather than the due course of law, it seemed natural to assume that they knew they were wrong (see Lysias Or. 23.12, §167).

Desecration of a temple was a serious offense, but given the Christians’ innocence (see comment on Acts 19:37), the seizure of Paul’s companions might appear ironic. Artemis was considered compassionate, and her sanctuary was well known as a place of asylum, although the sacred privilege of sanctuary it offered there was not always honored.[5985] For example, even a slave could take refuge from a slaveholder there (Cic. Verr. 2.1.33.85). Augustus had restricted the area of refuge because criminals had abused this privilege (Strabo 14.1.23).[5986]

Luke describes Paul’s fellow workers as συνέκδημοι, which technically means “fellow travelers,” but which Paul applies to his colleagues also in 2 Cor 8:19.[5987] Perhaps it implied “traveling colleagues,”[5988] of whom at least one and possibly both were on Paul’s impending mission to take the collection to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4).[5989] Aristarchus later accompanied Paul to Rome when Paul was a prisoner, as both Acts (27:2) and Paul’s letters (Col 4:10; Phlm 24) attest. Jewish disciples customarily traveled with teachers, teachers typically teaching on the way,[5990] though those whom Paul takes with him may work alongside him as well as learn from him.

Aristarchus was from Thessalonica, where his name was fairly common.[5991] Gaius was one of the most common names, attested among early Christians in Roman Corinth (Rom 16:23; 1 Cor 1:14) and in 3 John 1; the Gaius mentioned here was among Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia[5992] and so possibly different from the one from Derbe in Acts 20:4 (though the matter has invited debate as early as the Western text; see comment at Acts 20:4).[5993] Gaius could be a citizen name, but it was often adopted by noncitizens as well.[5994] In several cities of the empire, uneasiness over foreign Jews contributed to mistreatment of local Jews.[5995] Although being foreigners could count against them in a xenophobic riot,[5996] the temple of Artemis was known to welcome Greeks, barbarians, and slave and free alike under normal circumstances.[5997]

(3) Restrained from Entering the Theater (19:30–31)

Even at the risk of his life, Paul would never miss an opportunity to preach the gospel to many people (cf. 21:39–40). But both disciples and Paul’s “friends,” apparently patrons who sponsored some of his activity, prevented him from entering the theater.

RESTRAINED BY THE DISCIPLES (19:30)

Paul wanted[5998] to enter partly to clear up misconceptions both for the sake of his apprehended friends (19:29) and for his gospel. Even when his friends were seized by a mob (17:6), it was sometimes safer for everyone if Paul simply left town (17:10; cf. 9:25, 30).[5999] A mob would not necessarily respond to attempts to reason with it, and trying to do so could provoke increased hostility (19:33–34).

Why, then, does Paul seek to enter the assembly at such great risk? Even if it entailed danger to his life, Paul could not resist an opportunity for a hearing of his message by so many people; this becomes evident when he is not restrained from speaking in 21:39–40 (cf. 26:27–29).[6000] (Although the δῆμος refers to the citizen assembly here as normally in ancient literature,[6001] Luke’s portrayals of the masses through this term are hardly flattering [cf. 12:22; 17:5; 19:33, the only other NT uses].)[6002]

Some assemblies that heard Paul offered a divided response (17:32–34; 23:7–9), but Paul was not to be heard here. Luke’s report of Paul’s reason for not entering the assembly is perhaps to guard his honor.[6003] Elsewhere Luke reports that Paul refused to flee after facing hardship (14:20; 16:40; 18:18), and possibly Luke omits a less “honorable” reason for Paul’s avoidance of Ephesus in 20:16 (see comment there); here Paul refuses to appear because disciples or others would not allow it (as in 17:10, 14).[6004]

While the disciples who restrained Paul did so partly for his safety (the Asiarchs in 19:31 may have had other considerations) as in 21:4, 12, their attempt fits a pattern of well-meaning disciples restraining a master from his task. Jesus’s disciples tried to restrain parents from bringing children (Luke 18:15), and a blind beggar from distracting Jesus on the road to Jerusalem (18:39); they also sought to protect Jesus from capture (22:49–50). The next time Paul’s companions (including the narrator) seek to restrain Paul from danger (Acts 21:12), he refuses to be dissuaded (21:13) and is apprehended in a riot over another temple (21:27–22:24).

“The disciples” could mean his students (cf. “his disciples” who protected him in 9:25) but normally in Acts refers more generally to followers of Jesus (adherents of the Jesus movement or school). These may have been Paul’s students (the house churches may have grown partly from Paul’s “school,” see comment on Acts 19:9) and likely included recent converts (as in 14:20; 16:1; 18:23), but Luke’s use of the term does not by itself specify these connotations. Historically they could even include Priscilla and Aquila, who at some point before Paul’s Achaian sojourn in Acts 20:2–3 “risked their necks” for him (Rom 16:3), although they could have done so earlier in Corinth or Ephesus in incidents not reported by Luke (cf. 1 Cor 16:8–9; 2 Cor 1:8).

Some scholars have suggested that Paul is under the authority of the local church there,[6005] but we should not infer any official subordination even if Paul submits to their corporate wisdom and local sensitivity. Those who help him escape in Acts 9:25 are said to be “his” disciples; likewise, new converts in Thessalonica and Beroea send Paul off by night (17:10, 14), without any assumption that these new believers hold rank over Paul. That Luke makes Paul cooperative with local believers in emergency situations does not reduce his authority or status among them (cf. 20:17–18).

IDENTITY OF THE ASIARCHS (19:31)

The Asiarchs who were Paul’s “friends” are probably his patrons, sponsors of his public teaching activity (perhaps by covering his expenses at the hall of Tyrannus, 19:9). (I use “patrons” here in the common sense rather than the most technical political sense from the Roman republic, in which a patron is accompanied by dependents. Nevertheless, Roman usage abundantly illustrates the more general principles involved for reciprocity in benefactor-dependent relationships, and hence does significantly inform the discussion here. See the lengthy excursus on patronage, including comment on the attendant obligation of beneficiaries to honor patrons, at Acts 16:15.)

In return, these benefactors expect public honor. For Paul to be associated with this riot or with charges of subverting Artemis’s honor would have diminished their honor, so they do not want him to enter the assembly and thereby draw attention to his role in the matter at hand.[6006] The mob was primed to react angrily, and matters were better handled by the elite after tempers cooled and the benefactors’ honor could be recouped. Luke’s apologetic message for his audience includes not only the economic or class status of the Asiarchs but also their regional respectability; if Asiarchs, prominent officials of Asia (in contrast to Demetrius and his fellow artisans), support Paul, outsiders should rest assured that he was not genuinely harming the Artemis cult.

Asiarchs were chosen from among the highest elite of Asia’s cities for a yearly office; most major cities boasted several who had held this office, with Ephesus probably boasting several in Paul’s day.[6007] More than 200 Asiarchs are known, and 106 of them are associated with Ephesus.[6008] The office belonged to the province, not to the town,[6009] but their holding the office brought honor to their respective cities. As in this passage, these individuals were also concerned with their own honor. In Asia, people often purchased their priesthoods as a way to further augment their status, acquiring, for example, special seats in the theater.[6010]

Because the title was valid both for those currently passing their year in office and, “like any of the titles familiar in the Roman cursus honorum,” for those who had held it previously, Luke’s Asiarchs may have been present or former bearers of the office.[6011] It is particularly worthy of mention for Luke because it was the highest office a citizen could achieve in Ephesus.[6012] Luke’s pool of “Asiarchs” for Paul’s friends thus need not include only current officeholders. Luke would presumably employ the title “Asiarchs” for those elected in the past; they would retain the status the office had bestowed on them; in some cities, all ex-officials became members of the city senate (Pliny Ep. 10.79.1).

Some other regions named only one official—for example, one Lyciarch (Lycia), one Pontarch, and one Bithyniarch—but there was a plurality of Asiarchs in Asia. As Sherwin-White notes, “If the author of Acts had not known the peculiarities of the organization of Asia, he might well have made an error.”[6013] Luke’s correctness does not mean that he or his source was necessarily from that province, but it is a correct feature of local color.

New Testament scholars have traditionally identified the Asiarchs with priests of the provincial imperial cult or at least noted that this was where current evidence seemed to point.[6014] (On the imperial cult in Ephesus, see comment at the introduction to Acts 19:23–40.) Some speculate that their connection with pagan religion would explain their presence during the “festival of Artemisia, where they would represent the Emperor,”[6015] but even if this festival was occurring and the connection is upheld, as Paul’s “friends” (patrons), they were probably Asiarchs (present and former) who lived in Ephesus.[6016] (Because courts would probably not be open during festivals [Libanius Descr. 29.9], no festival is underway if Acts 19:38 is intended literally.)

More recent studies have emphasized that Asiarch and high priest of the imperial cult were separate offices, at least in the late first and early second centuries.[6017] Nevertheless, it remains accurate to say that the Asiarchs and imperial priests were usually chosen from the same elite pool of candidates[6018] and that the individuals filling these roles overlapped in many cases. Further, both would, by virtue of their office and simply their status, be expected to participate publicly in all events of civic religion, both those honoring the emperor and those devoted to Artemis. The status required for the cult’s high priesthood[6019] would probably make many of its holders also Asiarchs. (The high priest of the imperial cult in Achaia was called primus, which is equivalent to Strabo’s remark [Strabo 14.42] that the Asiarchs are “the first” in rank in their province.)[6020]

PAUL’S RELATIONS WITH ASIARCHS (19:31)

That Luke reports Paul’s contacts with some Asiarchs, whose position required participation in civic paganism, shows that neither Luke nor his understanding of Paul is sectarian (in contrast to, e.g., John 15:18–25 or Revelation).[6021] Sectarianism is often a minority’s natural response to alienation from a larger culture, however, and was probably unnecessary at this point; it appears doubtful that there was any official Roman hostility to Christians yet.[6022]

It is more to Luke’s point, however, to note that Paul knew people of high status in Asia (as elsewhere, e.g., Acts 13:12; 17:4, 12, 34), a matter that would interest and welcome Theophilus’s circle (1:1).[6023] Some scholars suspect that Luke’s claim in this case may be his “invention”;[6024] but emphasizing facts that suit one’s case is not the same as creating them. Paul’s own letters provide evidence of his contacts with the elite; certainly the position described in Rom 16:23, which apparently is held by a believer, is no mean office.[6025]

How might Paul have come to know people of such high status in Ephesus? Three factors appear paramount; of these, the third may be most significant. First, Paul was a Roman citizen (see comment on Acts 16:37), which may have motivated some Asiarchs to make his acquaintance (or at least welcome his inquiries). This is the least significant of the three factors,[6026] but it is not insignificant.[6027] Roman citizenship did not belong only to the elite in Ephesus, but it was also not a common franchise in a “free” Greek city such as Ephesus, as it was in Rome or colonies such as Corinth and Philippi.[6028] A number of Asiarchs did achieve Roman citizenship by virtue of their exalted local status and hence would have appreciated and been interested in the status. Moreover, they would have learned that Paul was a citizen the moment anyone used his tria nomina, his three names (which could have been used to advertise his “school”; cf. Acts 19:9), but his name would indicate that his family received the honorary franchise before they had, signifying high status (22:28).[6029] Paul’s interest in Rome (Acts 19:21; Rom 1:13; 15:22–24) would also have motivated him to make connections for future benefit where possible.

Second, Paul, as a “sophist” or philosopher (see comment on Acts 19:9), would have possessed some status[6030] beyond what his artisan trade could have provided (cf. comment on Acts 18:3); since he was a relative newcomer to the city, his acquired reputation as a teacher would count more than any previous credentials.[6031] As noted at Acts 19:9, Ephesus was a center of rhetoric, hosting some prominent sophists and many students of rhetoric; many of the sophists even held office.[6032] It was argued above (at Acts 19:9) that Paul would have been viewed more as a teacher of philosophy than as a teacher of rhetoric, but in any case his role as teacher conferred on him significant status.

Third, if Paul functioned as one of the city’s more popular teachers (as Luke certainly implies, Acts 19:10, 17, 20), his popularity would have made him attractive as a special object of benefaction.[6033] Asiarchs belonged to the wealthy provincial elite and were elected “with the expectation that they would personally finance public games and festivals”;[6034] inscriptions reveal that some Asiarchs acted as benefactors by supporting lectures and teachers.[6035] It was known that philosophers were often associated with local elites; although this connection could present dangers for their reputation, it was generally considered “worth the risk.”[6036] The more adherents and admirers Paul had, the greater the honor from the larger number of people his benefactors would acquire.[6037]

PAUL’S BENEFACTORS HERE

On benefactors and the honor they were to receive, see comment on Acts 4:9. Although this discussion here mingles the language of patronage and benefaction, Paul was not a “client” in the most technical, traditional Roman sense.[6038] Although the princeps himself had assumed the ultimate patronal role during the empire, conventional clients still followed their patrons in public. They reached their patron’s home at sunrise and followed him in procession to the forum two hours later and as he conducted financial and sometimes legal business. Around midday they would retire to the baths, and often they would follow the patron home for dinner; the entire routine often lasted until 3:00 p.m., and in the case of a banquet, it could last into the night. The physical presence of such clients demonstrated the patron’s political support, encouraging the political favor of other members of the elite. In effect, they were the patron’s paid retainers, supporting him politically.[6039] Paul could never have functioned as a client in this sense, whether out of conviction or out of the simple need for time; apparently he continued working in Ephesus (20:34).

Other forms of benefaction, however, followed many patterns of patronage in its narrower sense. Many members of the elite sponsored their own teachers to lecture at banquets, flaunting in a different manner the patron’s benevolence and interest in liberal education.[6040] Paul would not have accepted this form of support (attachment to a household); both in his epistles and in Acts, he prefers to work or accept gifts from other congregations (1 Cor 9:1–18; 2 Cor 11:7–9; 12:13; 1 Thess 2:9; Acts 20:34).[6041] But, having learned more about potentials for patronage when he was in Corinth (cf. 18:7), he may well have accepted sponsorship for the rent of Tyrannus’s facilities or for other costs associated with his ministry. In any case, the central principles of patronage apply (see discussion of “friendship” below). “The proper conduct” for the person receiving benefaction “was to acknowledge and advertise his benefactor’s generosity and power.”[6042]

Paul’s “friends” would expect repayment in honor—that is, public acknowledgment for their sponsorship.[6043] Appealing to a patron’s friendship consumed a portion of the limited supply of favor available (e.g., Pliny Ep. 1.17.1); one could not borrow such favor beyond what one could hope to reciprocate in honor. That Demetrius’s riot potentially damages their own honor explains why they must restrain Paul from entering the theater and being identified as the one who has dishonored Artemis; the crowd’s confusion (Acts 19:32) is far better than clear knowledge of the accused person’s identity.

That Paul was a monotheist would not have been a matter of serious concern to his pagan sponsors;[6044] Judaism had a good reputation in much of Asia Minor, though it would not have been as prominent in Ephesus as in Sardis.[6045] Most immigrant groups and “private associations . . . depended on benefactors, either within their own community or from interested outsiders”; that Jews did so is what we would expect.[6046] Many Gentiles in Roman Asia and elsewhere served as patrons for Jewish communities.[6047] For example, a Gentile in mid-first-century C.E. Acmonia built a synagogue for the local Jewish community;[6048] Luke provides another example of such benefaction in Palestine (Luke 7:5).

By explaining the highest God without demanding circumcision or traditional Jewish cultus, Paul might have appeared far more culturally universalistic to his patrons than was much of the synagogue community. So long as Paul was not attacking other gods, thus bringing dishonor on his patrons with the pagan majority, they could achieve honor among the large numbers positively touched by Paul’s ministry. Once Paul had open enemies, however, this criticism of his monotheistic exclusivism could cause problems for his supporters. The Roman patronage system was a network of alliances and enmity relationships; the enemies of one’s friends became one’s enemies.[6049] It is relevant to Ionian Ephesus that enmity networks constituted a Greek as well as Roman political practice; thus some in classical Athens allegedly became a person’s enemies (Lysias Or. 9.10, §115) because he became friends with another person of status (9.13, §115). Paul had numerous enemies before the riot (1 Cor 16:9),[6050] but the riot made them public.

Patronage rested more on letters of recommendation from other persons of honor than on careful research into the potential client’s beliefs; if he had passed muster at his initial rhetorical “performance” (see comment on Acts 19:9) and gained some honorable supporters, potential patrons would lack reason to investigate him more carefully. What this would mean, however, was that if Paul turned out to be discreditable, the public reputation of everyone who had recommended him would suffer.

“FRIENDSHIP” AS PATRONAGE

Luke recognized the social demands of “friendship” (cf. Luke 7:6; 11:5–8; 14:10–12; 23:12).[6051] The language of friendship here probably indicates patronage or benefaction, as some scholars have suggested.[6052] Because the ancient world recognized various forms of friendship, it is helpful to survey these here.[6053]

“Friendship” was a regular ancient topic of discourse,[6054] the subject of numerous essays.[6055] There were, however, a variety of different perspectives on and kinds of friendship, both in the philosophers and, more broadly, throughout Greco-Roman and Jewish society. “Friendship” could signify a relationship of dependence or of equality, of impersonal alliances or of personal bonds of affection. Although some of these divisions can be expressed by opposing Roman and Greek conceptions, there was sufficient interpenetration of the two by the time of the early empire that a hard-and-fast categorization along these lines is not useful for the purposes here.[6056]

One frequent use of “friendship” in our literary sources refers to political dependence on a royal patron.[6057] This usage applies to tyrants of the classical period,[6058] to the intimate circle of Alexander of Macedon,[6059] to a high office in Hellenistic Syria,[6060] to friendship with Caesar in the Roman imperial period,[6061] and to other rulers.[6062] Some insisted that true friends of a ruler ought to have freedom to speak frankly, as opposed to the flatterers with whom tyrants surrounded themselves (Max. Tyre 14.7).

In one of its most common uses in ancient literature, “friendship” (φιλία) applied to alliances, cooperation, or nonaggression treaties among peoples; this usage appears in Homer and Virgil[6063] and in other works of rhetoric and literature[6064] and naturally predominates in military biographers[6065] and historians.[6066]

“Friendship” could likewise apply to personal and familial relationships undertaken for political expediency.[6067] Romans felt no shame in openly acknowledging this; Pliny praises and is eager to help one who sought his friendship because of Pliny’s status and thereby recognized Pliny’s honor.[6068] Although Greek and Roman practices had influenced each other by this period, the Roman ideal of amicitia was traditionally more political and utilitarian than the Greek idea of friendship.[6069] To say that Romans “were rather incapable of a heartfelt friendship”[6070] is an exaggeration based on the one-sided portrayal of the literature of the social elite[6071] and I believe an exaggeration even there. Cicero’s letters of friendship contain political elements, including implicit negotiations with other political figures and letters of recommendation,[6072] but one cannot escape the clear impression of affection that pervades much of his correspondence. Nevertheless, the generalization does reflect the importance of political connections in the urban Roman conception of friendship.

Especially in (but not limited to) the Roman sphere, “friendship” did not always imply social equality of the parties concerned; both the royal and some of the nonroyal political images of friendship are probably related to the use of the word for patron-client relationships. Patrons were called the clients’ friends,[6073] and clients were called friends of their patron.[6074] Romans might categorize friendships according to greater, equal, or lesser friends and (lesser still) clients, according to their available resources.[6075] A patron could be viewed as a “generous friend.”[6076] (Clients sometimes exploited their understanding of this “friendship” to challenge some inequities in the patrons’ understanding of the relationship.)[6077] Friendship was generally conditional, often including “obligations and expectations,”[6078] whether formally or informally.

Not all ancient Mediterranean conceptions of friendship, however, reflected this hierarchical sort of relationship, even where reciprocity was anticipated. In the eastern Mediterranean, societies of friends could include fellow members of one’s guild,[6079] or “friends” could consist of one’s age-peers.[6080] Although age-group societies may have declined in the Hellenistic and Roman periods,[6081] among the wealthy the classical Greek image of friendship tended to be companionship based on groupings of the same sex and age, which constituted political parties.[6082] Among the Greek schools, the Epicureans in particular emphasized friendship,[6083] regarding it as a source of pleasure.[6084]

Although Roman patronal friendship made only the vaguest pretense to equality, if any pretense at all, this Greek image of friendship, even when related to benefaction, demanded equality. Plato applied the title “friendship” to affection for peers and equals, though he also applied it to the affection of the poor for the rich who could meet their needs, which could also generate “love” (Plato Laws 8.837AB). More relevant, Aristotle cited an earlier saying, “Friendship is equality” (ἰσότης ἡ φιλότης),[6085] and is said to have “defined friendship as an equality [ἰσότητα] of reciprocal goodwill, including under the term as one species the friendship of kinsmen, as another that of lovers, and as a third that of host and guest.”[6086] The motif of friendship as equality also prevailed in the Neopythagorean writings.[6087]

The notion of friendship as equality was, however, hardly limited to Greek philosophers. As early as Homer, a leader could honor a special friend above his other companions, regarding him as “equal” (ἶσον) to himself.[6088] Alexandrian Jewish writers also adopted this notion; in Let. Aris. 228, the highest honor is to be shown to parents, but the next honor to one’s friends, for a friend is the “equal of one’s own soul.”[6089] Thus one papyrus letter recommends a friend (amicum) by exhorting the receiver to view him “as if he were me.”[6090] In Greek thought, a friend was like a “second self,”[6091] meaning that one would care about one’s friend the way one would care for oneself.[6092]

The Asiarchs’ warning Paul against entering the theater could be construed in terms of Greek friendship’s concern for the other person; indeed, one ideal of such friendship was to die for or with a friend.[6093] But Luke’s original audience, though undoubtedly pleased with Paul’s significant marks of status vis-à-vis the average resident of the eastern Mediterranean world (Acts 16:37; 21:39; 22:28), will nevertheless not confuse his rank with that of the Asiarchs. One might envision them as his disciples,[6094] hence allowing a relationship based on reciprocity of benefits. It is far more likely, however, that Luke’s audience would have recognized that these Asiarchs were not only citizens of the Greek East but members of the high elite, presumably Roman citizens. They were benefactors, who displayed their benefactions in return for honor. The relationship is thus more like the patron-client, hierarchical relationship than one of intimate[6095] equality.

THE ASIARCHS’ ACTIONS HERE

In Ephesus, the imperial cult was connected in some respects, for matters of prestige, with the cult of Artemis (see discussion at Acts 19:40). The local politics of Artemis and her honor was related to the international politics of the emperor and his honor and hence could be imbued with more ominous political implications.[6096] Probably many priests and priestesses of Artemis in this period, and certainly civic magistrates charged with administrating the cult and its resources,[6097] came from the same social stratum as the Asiarchs and overlapped with them.

For their dependent to be condemned for speaking against the goddess would embarrass Paul’s patrons and violate the expected duties of a client or other dependent to bring only honor to one’s benefactor.[6098] For Paul to be accused yet not condemned was better, but if there was any possibility of his being condemned or of public hearings dragging out the matter, it was best for their own reputation[6099] if he left Ephesus quietly and was quickly forgotten. If the matter came to court, Paul might be vindicated, but unless this vindication happened quickly, supporters of Demetrius would be strengthened, rumors would spread, and the situation would reflect negatively on the Asiarchs’ patronage. The worst case, however, was for Paul to appear before the current unofficial “court” (of immediate public opinion), which would certainly condemn him—a mob already primed to reject anything that might appear to dishonor “the great goddess Artemis” (19:28, 33–34).

It is possible that the Asiarchs who urged Paul not to make matters worse by speaking publicly sought help privately from the city clerk (19:35), which would explain the clerk’s knowledge of the case (19:37–38). If so, they solicited a favor from members of their own social class; since relationships required reciprocity, humbling themselves to seek a favor obligated them further to their friends in office. It could represent a further indication that supporting Paul was not worth the political risk. In principle, patrons and clients were to demonstrate fidelity (πίστις) by remaining true to each other even in hard times; in practice, old political alliances were regularly abandoned for new ones.[6100] This is not to say that the Asiarchs would publicly repudiate Paul (which would entail embracing the shame of admitting they had supported him); they might even write private letters of recommendation for him in another city. For the sake of their own honor they might guard his case if it came to court to ensure the discrediting of Demetrius’s charge.[6101] It is possible that Paul may have remained on acceptable terms with them; for all we know (we have no means of knowing), he may have even remained on affectionate terms with some of them if he knew them personally. But Paul could not expect their open, public support in the city any longer.

From the standpoint of Luke’s account, this portrayal underlines the apologetic point: Paul’s opponents were the rabble (19:24–29), but his supporters were people of status (19:31, 35, 37). Since it was the testimony of people of status that counted most in courts, Paul may have had relatively little to fear from the courts. This datum supports Luke’s picture of positive Roman legal precedents favoring Paul’s mission (along with Luke’s omission of his martyrdom).

Although Paul might have disregarded his friends’ warning (see comment on Acts 19:30), he was morally constrained to heed the message sent by the Asiarchs who had publicly supported his teaching.[6102] He valued opportunities to communicate his message more than he valued his life and safety (cf. 21:40–22:21), but he could not risk embarrassing the Asiarchs further. Aside from the question of honor obligations to benefactors, Paul had to be concerned with the long-range status of the church in Ephesus, a matter that could only be adversely affected if he incurred his former patrons’ hostility.[6103]

(4) The Confused Assembly (19:32)

Shouting was common in assemblies.[6104] Unruly or riotous assemblies in theaters and other public assembly halls were common in antiquity and were hardly restricted to novels (see comment on Acts 19:28).[6105] Dio Chrysostom reports that the shouts of one angry mob in a theater were so great that they nearly knocked him over.[6106] The confusion described here does not prevent the mob from being “united” in their folly (cf. 19:29, 34);[6107] it resembles the state of the similar mob in Jerusalem in 21:27, 31.[6108]

The term ἐκκλησία was a common term for citizen or other assemblies[6109] in, for example, Rome,[6110] Antioch,[6111] Jerusalem,[6112] and (particularly relevant here) Ephesus.[6113] This body, composed of male adult citizens (or a smaller group based on property qualifications), was the primary organ of public decisions in Greek states following the old Athenian model; details such as spheres of authority and meeting times varied among cities.[6114] If this is not a legally constituted “assembly” (but, rather, a “crowd,” as in 19:35; cf. 19:33), ἐκκλησία here and in 19:40 may be somewhat ironic (contrast 19:39).[6115]

Some scholars argue that the incident indeed involves a regular meeting of the assembly and not just a mob that stormed the theater; how else would Paul or Alexander suppose they could receive a hearing?[6116] In this case, the reason the plaintiffs dragged in Paul’s companions would be to make sure that they could be charged (cf. 17:5–6), and the problem with the meeting (19:40) was not its timing but its conduct. This proposal would explain the use of ἐκκλησία here; it could represent one of the city’s regularly held extra meetings, nevertheless distinct from the “regular assembly” (19:39; see comment there). Luke might well have an apologetic reason to emphasize the unruly behavior of the accusers; this would not be the only occasion where some scholars think that his narrative seems to send mixed signals about a dangerous hearing’s venue (cf. 6:12; 7:1, 58).

It is reasonable that the silver workers were bringing a complaint (and two of its suddenly seized objects) to an extra meeting that subsequently went out of control; this would explain the theater venue. But one wonders how this matter would get on the docket of the public assembly, the time of which was precious, rather than be addressed first in the courts, where it belonged (as the clerk rightly suggests in 19:38). Further, why contrast the “regular assembly” with an additional assembly? It is also possible that many of those who gathered thought that it was a suddenly called, irregular, but official meeting when in fact official channels had been circumvented. One can read the narrative either way, but it does seem plausible that this is a riot (see comment on 24:5) rather than a public judicial action.

That the mob did not know why it was assembled provides humorous irony (cf. again 21:34; 23:6–9),[6117] again reinforcing Luke’s consistent portrait that Paul’s enemies in Ephesus were demagogues and Paul was the scholar (cf. 19:9). Ancient thinkers could employ mobs to symbolize uncontrolled passions, in contrast to pure contemplation (Max. Tyre 11.10; 27.6). Claiming that the multitude did not know the purpose also leaves the primary blame on those who stirred up the trouble, diminishing the image of popular hostility against Paul; one may compare the multitudes’ ignorance of the purpose of the public assembly called by Josephus’s opponents in Tiberias (Jos. Life 280). Likewise, a political biographer complains that Aristides was banished for a few years and that many who voted against him did not even know the charge (Corn. Nep. 3 [Aristides], 1.4). Luke might wish, for apologetic reasons, to portray the crowd as not knowing that Paul was the object of their furor, but he could well be right on this matter, since Christians in Ephesus seem to have grown unhindered after his departure.[6118] As to the humor, mingling humor with serious subjects was a useful rhetorical technique.[6119]

(5) Anti-Jewish Outcry (19:33–34)

Here (as perhaps in Acts 18:17 in Corinth) Luke names a leading member of the synagogue community (probably) opposed to Paul,[6120] as if this information had remained important to some Pauline churches in his era. It is possible that this is Alexander the coppersmith (2 Tim 4:14);[6121] but the synagogue may have had members of higher status than an artisan to put forward (despite relevance to the current situation—Acts 19:24–25, 38), and Alexander was a common name both among Diaspora Jews (see comment on Acts 4:6) and among all residents of Ephesus.[6122] The name was so common that on several occasions we read of “Alexander, son of Alexander.”[6123] The Alexander mentioned here might be among the later accusers of Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 21:27); because he is not named there, however, we can only infer that he belonged to the same group of Ephesian synagogue members that was alienated from Paul. Whether or not Luke expects his audience to recognize the name, it probably suggests that Luke depends on a larger pool of prior information than what he is able to report.[6124]

DEFENDING JEWISH RIGHTS

Josephus reveals that Asian Jews preserved records of legal precedents and decrees in their favor.[6125] (On the Jewish community in Ephesus, see comment on Acts 18:19; 19:8–9.) Rome had guaranteed synagogues in Asia the right to assemble,[6126] but various cities had sometimes “challenged or withdrawn” these rights as recently as the first century B.C.E.[6127] The rights were barely challenged in the first century C.E., but the communal memories of potentially persecuted minorities preserve warnings over long periods.

Leaders in the Jewish community would be anxious to preserve their community’s favorable status and reputation. If they knew enough of the charge to realize that it concerned Paul’s preaching of monotheism to Gentiles (19:26; after two more hours at least, the city clerk knew the lead accuser’s identity, 19:38), they must therefore have wished to dissociate themselves from Paul, who was certainly no longer part of their synagogue (19:8–9).[6128] They were willing to live as a peaceful, uncontentious minority within the city; Gentiles could live as Gentiles so long as Jews could live as Jews. In an earlier time, some Ionians had protested some Jewish people being local citizens when they refused to participate in civic religion, the worship of local deities (Ant. 12.125–26).[6129] With this communal memory, local Jews might hope especially for tolerance of their own nonparticipation rather than significant conversion of polytheists. It was the outsider Paul, not the official synagogue, who was actively seeking to convert Gentiles (and their fellow Jews) to his views.[6130]

The synagogue adherents’ attempt to distinguish themselves from Paul, however, backfired; if many in the crowd knew nothing except that their shouts defended the sanctity of Artemis, they might view as instigators of the trouble Jews who denied the reality of gods made with hands (19:26). Alexander may intend to dissociate the synagogue from Paul; the crowd may expect instead a defense of monotheism, perhaps under the guise of a defense of Jewish rights. In a legal setting, one could protest that one should not be tried for what another did (Hermog. Issues 44.7–9); but this is a mob, not a courtroom.

Although local Jews probably did not vocally challenge the cultural status quo (they were tolerated, and they probably tolerated in turn),[6131] it would be well known that Jews did not believe in Artemis.[6132] Normal toleration often gives way in mob settings, and some members of this crowd, much of it unaware of the nature of the alleged assault on Artemis’s dignity (Acts 19:32), assume that the Jewish speaker authored the assault.[6133]

In several cities of the empire, uneasiness over foreign Jews contributed to mistreatment of local Jews.[6134] Such circumstances were less likely in mid-first-century Ephesus, but it was still a genuine risk. Five or six decades before the present incident, Greeks in Ephesus apparently stole money intended for Jerusalem, tried to force Jews to court on the Sabbath, and sought to steal holy books and other sacred items from synagogues (Jos. Ant. 16.160–64).[6135] We lack reason to suppose that Luke exaggerates the danger here. Elsewhere, in another theater about 70 C.E., an apostate or traitorous Jew in Antioch accused Jews of planning to burn the city; the crowd burned the accused alive (War 7.47–48)—an event much more dramatic than the incident that Luke reports.[6136]

THE CONTEXT OF ACTS

Earlier in Acts, apostles bore the brunt of pagan anti-Judaism (Acts 16:20–21); in Corinth and Ephesus, however, attempts of some Jewish leaders to dissociate themselves from Paul (if this is the point) lead to more trouble for them rather than for Paul (cf. 18:17).[6137] Many in the synagogue, already split through Paul’s activity there (19:8–9), probably held Paul’s “intolerant” preaching responsible for their embarrassment. (They were already opposing him in Ephesus in the summary of 20:19, although Luke focuses at length only on the pagans’ riot for Paul’s opposition there.)

Thus it is not surprising that Asian Jews visiting the temple, perhaps for Pentecost, later oppose Paul (21:27–28) and leave behind the charge that he stirs unrest in Jewish communities (24:5). Luke’s report, however, is ironic: Asian Jews accuse Paul of preaching against their people and law and temple to Gentiles (21:28), whereas the reader knows precisely the opposite: the charge in Ephesus was that Paul preached against pagan gods and would turn the world from honoring a pagan temple (19:26–27).

UNABLE TO BE HEARD

When Alexander signals with his hand, he is trying to attract the crowd’s attention. Sometimes in Acts, hand motions are rhetorical gestures for speeches (13:16; 26:1), but on other occasions, they probably indicate that the speaker seeks attention visually, unable to procure it verbally because of noise (12:17; 21:40).[6138] The situation here was not unusual (cf. comment on Acts 18:17). When individuals began shouting instead of taking turns as they normally would, the people could not understand what was being said (Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.15.4). One who wished to speak had to either silence the disorganized noise in an assembly (9.48.1, with rival factions) or wait for it to quiet down (6.88.1).

In novels we read of assemblies crying out with such clamor that it was difficult to hear or be heard (Heliod. Eth. 1.13). But this was the nature of uncontrolled assemblies in historical works as well. People cried out in the senate, shouting their disapproval (Diod. Sic. 40.5a.1). One assembly was reportedly so unruly that it stoned attempted speakers to death without waiting to see whether they supported or challenged the rabble-rousers (Polyb. 1.69.10–13). On that occasion, the only phrase the various rioting groups recognized was, “Stone him” (1.69.12).

Nor was it unusual for a crowd to react with hostility to a speaker once they knew his identity. A crowd could not hear one Phocion because of the rioters’ noise, seeing only his gestures even when he called loudly. The mob listened to the opening words of his friends, but when it became clear that they were speaking for the defense, they were driven away.[6139] A crowd’s selective self-control was evident on other occasions; on one such occasion, a crowd listened to its leaders but drowned out the decemvir’s voice with noise (Livy 3.49.4).

So common were interruptions such as jeering that some earlier Greek rhetoricians instructed speakers how to handle these situations.[6140] If an opponent interrupts the speech toward the beginning, the speaker should complain that it is unfair that, despite the law granting one a right to a speech, his opponent refuses to let the audience hear even that (Rhet. Alex. 18, 1432b.35–40). If a few interrupt later in the speech, the speaker should demand that they allow the speech so that other jurors can make up their own minds (1433a.14–18). If most of the hearers clamor, the speaker should admit that he was wrong and beg the judges to hear him out; usually, the handbook advises, this will restore attention (1433a.19–25).

A mob would not respond, however, to any of these tactics, especially if Alexander could not make himself heard. As Edwin Judge points out: “Another outlet through which the citizen body could make its opinions plain was in the unofficial but organized demonstrations that are a feature of Hellenistic city life. If not constitutionally valid, they often gained their point in a rough and ready way. The mass chanting of a crowd was difficult to resist.”[6141] After an exceptionally persuasive speech, even a dignified assembly might clamor so thoroughly against another attempting to reply that the latter never was able to be heard (Pliny Ep. 9.13.19–20).

Did the two-hour cry consist of chanting in unison or simply repeated individual shouts continuing amid the confusion?[6142] In a theater holding some twenty thousand people (though fewer may be gathered here), it would not be difficult for individuals to catch the rhythm, once one group’s voices began to dominate sufficiently, to chant in unison.[6143] It is not likely that anything but such a preexisting chant (on its use, see comment on Acts 19:28)[6144] could unite the audience, and once begun its recitation could function as an act of religious fervor. Many ancient orations lasted two hours,[6145] and so it is not unlikely that a mob, once aroused, could shout so long, until its fury was largely spent.

LUKE’S SOURCE?

Some scholars think that Luke’s source referred to only an anti-Jewish riot, or an anti-Christian riot involving other Christians but not Paul. Lampe suggests that the account reflects a genuine riot and that Alexander, who is known to Luke’s audience, is a Jewish Christian,[6146] but this may be too much to infer from the absence of τις (a “certain” Alexander).[6147] Like a similar anti-Jewish backlash in Acts 18:17, this one contributes toward explaining the charge in 24:5. Alexander was put forward by “the Jews”; although “Jews” and “disciples” were not mutually exclusive categories, Luke normally identifies followers of the Jesus movement as such.

That the event depicted in Luke’s source was an anti-Jewish riot not involving the Jesus movement would not explain why Luke would have used it; riots happened often enough that Luke would not need this specific model. Others, however, suggest that it was an anti-Christian riot not involving Paul.[6148] But if Paul was in Ephesus, how could an anti-Christian riot not involve him in some way? (He likely worked there before “Johannine” Christians did, especially if many of these were Judeans who migrated to Ephesus after 70 C.E.)[6149] Given the likelihood that Luke plays down the fact that Paul became unwelcome in Ephesus (see comment on Acts 20:16) and that (as already argued in ch. 10 of the introduction)[6150] Luke may have written even within a decade after Paul’s death, there is little reason to make the source of this scene an anti-Christian riot after Paul’s departure.

V. AN OFFICIAL DEFENDS THE DISCIPLES (19:35–41)

While demagogues and perhaps synagogue leaders oppose Paul, duly represented authority defends him; this was a picture that would sit well with many hearers in the empire.[6151] That Paul had highly placed allies is likely (see comment on Acts 19:31); that Luke reiterates the point, however, comports well with his apologetic design.

(1) Introduction

Both the nature of the clerk’s speech and the politics that inform it are relevant here. We would expect the city clerk to calm the crowd with words such as these; we would also expect Paul’s influential allies to have lobbied their colleague on his behalf.

THE OFFICIAL’S SPEECH

The official’s speech is rhetorically stronger than Demetrius’s in 19:25–27. Kennedy suggests the following rhetorical outline for the passage:[6152]

↑ Back to top