Proem (19:35): The shrine’s greatness is beyond debate.
The substance of the speech would be a matter of public record. Minutes were kept of official meetings of a civic assembly (or of any official body).[6153] Whereas a mob situation did not invite the keeping of minutes, the official who spoke on behalf of order would want to be able to document his words afterward for the sake of a positive appeal to the governor to overlook the incident.[6154] Luke’s sources here would not be official records, however (it is not even likely that he traveled to Ephesus [cf. 20:15–16], much less consulted records there); some of Paul’s traveling companions (19:29) and supporters (19:30–31) were present. One of his companions, Aristarchus, spent considerable time with the author of Acts afterward (20:4; 27:2; cf. Col 4:10, 14; Phlm 24). There is thus good reason to assume that Luke would have known at least his Christian informants’ summary of the basic thrust of the speech that disbanded the unlawful assembly. Luke could then develop such information plausibly into a more coherent speech, as ancient historians often did. Here, however, the précis reports no more than the thrust; however Luke may have adapted the speech, he could not have expanded it much.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES ADVOCATES?
The city clerk knows far more about the charges behind the riot (Acts 19:37–38) than does much of the crowd (19:32), and he knows it from a vantage point favorable to Paul’s colleagues (19:37). Luke writes too concisely to provide the details for what happened, but ancient readers might have reconstructed a behind-the-scenes effort on behalf of Paul’s colleagues. It is possible that Demetrius was known because he had previously petitioned the courts unsuccessfully on this matter or because he was making a personal appeal to officials during the riot that he had helped begin.
It is equally or perhaps even more likely, however, that when Demetrius’s allies apprehended two of Paul’s colleagues (19:29), Paul and others (perhaps familiar with Demetrius’s past threats or complaints)[6155] immediately sought the help of highly placed friends. Although access to patrons was normally during set times in the morning, the riot created an emergency situation, and the Asiarchs’ own honor was at stake (see comment on Acts 19:31). The Asiarchs, who knew Ephesian politics well, thus would have insisted that Paul stay out of the theater (19:31) while they contacted city officials who shared their status and with whom they had reciprocally beneficial relationships. That Demetrius is named (undercutting any potential attempt to disguise his aggression through a mob) and Paul and his colleagues are not (“these men”) also suggests that the official has the story from Paul’s allies, who wish to reduce the scandal involving Paul.
As in 18:14, Paul does not raise an argument in his own defense, but he may have noticed the situation’s irony. As in 18:12–13, Jewish community leaders appear to have been hostile to Paul (19:33–34, at least if we may guess from 19:9–10 and 21:27–28); as in 16:19–22, pagan crowds were also hostile. But as in 18:14–15, some pagan officials refused to accommodate such partisan attacks;[6156] Luke presents the ideal of justice in the empire favorably, perhaps also as an invitation to officials who hear such reports (if nowhere else, perhaps from members of Luke’s audience) to emulate such precedents.
Acts does not focus on Paul’s development as a character, but if we may infer any development in Paul’s relations with the authorities, it is not surprising that by the time of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem, he is prepared to appeal to the Roman government (21:37–39; 22:25–28; 23:17). In principle, pagan civic and Roman authorities were concerned with justice and order; in practice, this remained true where unchecked by rapacious officials or emperors’ greed. At the least, Paul would fare better with sometimes favorable authorities than with certain enemies.
(2) No Doubt about Artemis (19:35–36)
The city clerk appeals to common knowledge about Artemis’s greatness to show that her cult is in no danger (contrary to the accusation of 19:27, which he may portray as dishonoring to the goddess). Whereas the elite expected demagogues (such as Demetrius in 19:25–27) to stir crowds passionately, they expected calmer reason and dignified bearing from other members of the elite.[6157] Luke’s audience would probably imagine the city clerk reasoning with the crowd that had gotten out of control. The contrast between a populist demagogue denouncing Paul and a reasoned official defending him would appeal to the sort of people who could make a difference in the church’s acceptability in Luke’s (and Paul’s) day.[6158]
QUIETING THE CROWD (19:35)
Silencing a crowd was no easy task. When panic spread through one army camp at night, one had to interrupt the noise, ordering silence, before making a proclamation (Xen. Anab. 2.2.19–20). Nevertheless, the city clerk had some advantages to help him in spreading word. It is likely that initially an assistant would walk around on the platform, shouting as loudly as possible to get people’s attention so the official could speak with less strain.[6159] The acoustics in the theater were notably good,[6160] and the presence of a noted official,[6161] perhaps wearing official regalia and standing in an official location for announcements,[6162] could alert the crowds (beginning with those nearest the front) that a speech was about to be given. After two hours of frenzy, many were no doubt more exhausted than they had realized, in any case, and more than ready to hear from an official of the city. Presumably he signaled with the familiar gesture requesting silence; some other ancient texts employ the same verb (καταστέλλω) for quieting a crowd with a hand motion.[6163]
A leader’s ability to quiet an angry crowd with words of reason was considered praiseworthy (e.g., Jos. Ant. 4.35).[6164] It is possible that the audience members listened also because they expected a city official to defend the Artemis cult; certainly their actions indicate that they did not expect to be told that the cult had not been challenged. One riotous assembly clamoring for punishment on prisoners quieted when it saw an old man who, having lost two sons in the war, would surely oppose the captives (Diod. Sic. 13.19.6); once he had the audience’s attention, he argued for mercy (13.20–27).
THE CITY CLERK (19:35)
The γραμματεύς here is a city official or “clerk,” not merely a village scribe or a respected Jewish teacher (see comment on Acts 4:5).[6165] Although a γραμματεὺς τῆς βουλῆς (clerk of the city council) would be a notable official,[6166] the crowd’s recognition of and response to the individual suggests that he is instead the γραμματεὺς τοῦ δήμου, clerk of the city assembly.[6167] This official was one of the highest in Ephesus. So prominent was this position, in fact, that, as Trebilco notes, “inscriptions were often dated by the clerk’s year in office and he appears on Ephesian coinage from the time of Augustus.”[6168] Sherwin-White notes that in other cities of Roman Asia, this official functioned as “the chief administrative assistant, annually elected, of the magistrates; he had a staff of permanent clerks, responsible for the paper work of the city.”[6169] Specifically in Ephesus, however, he ranks higher (and hence is more explicitly named) than the στρατηγοί whose authority he has supplanted; he acts “as the director of affairs in council or assembly.” Coins from Augustus’s period onward identify him as Ephesus’s “chief magistrate. On one document, he is even named along with the proconsul of the year as if he were the eponymous magistrate.”[6170] It was he with whom Demetrius and his followers should have first lodged their complaint.[6171]
He would represent the same social stratum as Paul’s patrons in Acts 19:31, likely with some of the same sympathies but with a paramount obligation to restore order (19:40). Sometimes the clerk was himself an Asiarch or former Asiarch;[6172] at other times he may have been an aspiring future Asiarch, and helping out others of rank could have strengthened him politically.[6173] Most Greek offices for public secretaries ran for only a year,[6174] which might minimize political concerns about offending the crowd here (though he might well plan to hold other offices afterward).
Responsible for many aspects of the city’s administration, the γραμματεύς “frequently led city politics and spoke for the city assembly.”[6175] In Asia Minor, this clerk was usually (as noted above) the city’s highest official: “Documents from Ephesus show that the town clerk was superior to the city council members.”[6176] His position likely required him to function as the chief liaison between Ephesus’s local government and the Roman proconsul, headquartered in the same city—which meant that he would be the official responsible for explaining the riot to the provincial authorities (cf. 19:40).[6177]
CIVIC PRIDE (19:35)
The form of the clerk’s question (“Who does not know . . . ?”) functions as an appeal to common knowledge, a common rhetorical appeal in antiquity.[6178] Rhetorical questions like this one were common in rhetoric.[6179] The clerk builds rapport with his audience in the beginning, as was appropriate in an introductory exordium (see comment on Acts 17:22), by affirming the very matter that appears to be under dispute; this would win his hearers’ support, while also defusing any reason for continued protest. Building rapport would be especially crucial when one addressed a hostile or unstable assembly.
His appeal to civic pride is likewise appropriate in an exordium (on civic pride, see comment on Acts 21:39). One specialty of rhetorical training was to provide encomia on cities, as in Isocrates’s Panegyricus and Panathenaicus and Aelius Aristides’s To Rome (Or. 26).[6180] Orators could praise cities for their location, sometimes because they overshadowed neighbors or failed to be overshadowed by them (Men. Rhet. 1.2, 350.4–6); some said that Asia’s cities were so great that none robbed the others of splendor (350.4–6).[6181] Cities could also be praised for justice and fairness in dealing with neighbors (2.3, 385.14–17).[6182] Another important subject for encomium was a city’s origin (1.2, 353.8–11), especially if it was founded by a deity (353.11–12). Only a few cities, such as Heliopolis, claimed to be founded by deities (353.13), but the divine origin of its treasured image of Artemis would provide an analogous source of local pride in Ephesus. A philosophic observer implied that Ephesians took civic pride much too far (Heraclitus Ep. 9). The clerk’s appeal to civic pride here includes the title νεωκόρος (NRSV, “temple keeper”) and the claim that Artemis’s great statue fell from heaven itself.
Νεωκόρος (19:35)
The term νεωκόρος appears frequently in Ephesus’s inscriptions (ninety times or more in I. Eph.), with various applications.[6183] Applying this familiar title to the city would appeal to the audience’s civic pride in their relation to Artemis; rhetoricians understood that blame (Acts 19:40) was more palatable if seasoned with, and often preceded by, praise.[6184]
The city prided itself in its νεωκόρος status as “guardian” or “warden” of the imperial cult, a status officially conferred in the late first century.[6185] Some scholars emphasize that the title therefore belongs to the late first century rather than to Paul’s day and argue that the title reflects Luke’s day rather than Paul’s.[6186] That Luke would use language of his own day as he fills out a speech summary would be plausible, but normally historians tried to insert in composed speeches language thought appropriate to the speaker.[6187] More problematic is this argument’s demand that we date Acts after 89 C.E., when the title was conferred, and far enough after that date for Luke to know the title (especially since he was not likely based in Ephesus); if he also does not know that the title is too recently bestowed to be relevant, this could push the date even later. These multiple assumptions require a date much later than the majority of scholars assign to the work.[6188]
If this were the only literal option, it would be more plausible to argue that Luke’s use of the title is purely figurative and merely coincidental with the later usage. Luke in fact says nothing about the city as warden of the imperial cult but applies the title to the city as warden of Ephesian Artemis. The original use of νεωκόρος for a temple warden of the Artemis temple[6189] (or, less relevant, for a humbler way of keeping a shrine)[6190] could readily be applied figuratively to the entire city, a hyperbole particularly suited to epideictic rhetoric and complimentary exordia.[6191]
Yet it is possible that Luke offers neither anachronism nor metaphor but reflects an authentic usage of νεωκόρος for the city, and one closer to Paul’s time. A coin of 65/66 C.E., only about a decade after Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, speaks of neōkoros with reference to Ephesus, probably referring “to Ephesos as the neokoros of Artemis.”[6192] Less relevant, the phrase appears on at least two Domitianic coins (Ephesus as “twice neokoros”),[6193] and later inscriptions also identify the city as “temple keeper of Artemis” (νεωκόρος τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος) as well as of the emperors.[6194] A term’s first appearance in our surviving, fragmentary sources is rarely its first actual occurrence. Given the small percentage of evidence that survives, it is reasonable to suppose that the title that became official enough for use on coins soon afterward was already in popular vogue for praising the city.[6195] The designation is a reasonable one. “In the Roman period, Greek cities were given the by-name neokoros in their capacity as the special ‘patron’ of a cult of their particular tutelary deities.”[6196]
THE IMAGE FROM HEAVEN (19:35)
The clerk claims that Artemis’s image “fell from heaven.” Despite an occasional suggestion to the contrary,[6197] we lack sufficient evidence that the cult image in Ephesus actually fell from heaven or was even believed to have done so.[6198] Some scholars have suggested that it was a meteorite, like some other sacred objects in antiquity (reportedly including Ceres at Enna, and El Gabal at Emesa).[6199] But such suggestions do not fit surviving images of the Ephesian Artemis, which were clearly formed by human hands (see discussion of the image in the introduction, above, to Acts 19:23–40).[6200] (That a piece of meteorite was used in, on, or beneath the image is not impossible.)[6201] Tradition claimed that the Amazons dedicated this Ephesian Artemis image.[6202]
The clerk may grant even more than what his audience expects in his praise of Artemis, continuing to establish favor with them to make his case. When offering an epideictic oration praising a statue, one would compare it with others and could add, “What Phidias, what Daedalus fashioned such an image?”[6203] Then, with no less exaggeration, an orator might add, “Perhaps this statue fell from heaven.”[6204] The purpose in the clerk’s statement here is probably to contrast this Artemis with “gods made with hands” (Acts 19:26),[6205] demonstrating that any such claims are too baseless to be taken seriously (and hence to merit a riot). As a member of the highly literate class, he would know many accounts of divine images from heaven being used in Asia Minor; most of these were probably known by most of the population, rehearsed by storytellers and orators.
Thus writers commented on the Palladium, an image of Athena that had fallen from heaven (διιπετές) and had to be captured before Troy could fall (Apollod. Epit. 5.10).[6206] In one account, it originally fell from heaven in front of Ilus’s tent, as a sign from Zeus; “It was three cubits in height, its feet joined together; in its right hand it held a spear aloft, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle” (Apollod. Bib. 3.12.3).[6207] Lycophron declares that it fell “from heaven [ἐξ οὐρανοῦ] and Zeus’ throne” (Alex. 363); Fronto also says that it fell “from heaven” (de caelo; Eloq. 1.3). Some ancients thought that it might still exist in the later Troas (in northwest Asia Minor; see comment on Acts 16:8)[6208] or (more common among Romans) that Aeneas brought it from Troy to Rome,[6209] though the dominant Greek tradition was that of its capture by the Greeks.[6210] Legend also claimed that the Athena image in Athens’s Acropolis fell from heaven (πεσεῖν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ).[6211]
Likewise, Appian reports that the image of the Great Mother, mother of the gods, fell from heaven at Pessinus in Phrygia about 204 B.C.E. and was brought to Rome (Hist. rom. 7.9.56). Herodian notes the same tradition of the statue’s having fallen from Zeus in Pessinus (Hdn. 1.11.1)[6212] and that the Romans had the Phrygians bring the statue to Rome (1.11.3–5). Elsewhere, a huge stone reportedly fell from heaven in the fifth century B.C.E. and continued to be revered by locals half a millennium later (Plut. Lys. 12.1–2).[6213] Some claimed that the Cyprian Aphrodite (see comment on Acts 13:6) fell from heaven.[6214] Storytellers could also narrate the gods’ sending a shield down from the sky (Ovid Fasti 3.373–74).
Perhaps most relevant is that classical Greek drama spoke of the Taurian Artemis image as διοπετής—that is, from Zeus—claiming that it fell from heaven.[6215] In Euripides’s story (written for an Athenian audience), this statue was taken to Athens (Iph. Taur. 1445–61). Some could also speak metaphorically of something supposedly from the gods that had “fallen from the heavens.”[6216]
As noted above, the clerk in the narrative world probably contrasts this heavenly Artemis with “gods made with hands” (Acts 19:26), demonstrating that any such anti-idolatry claims are too baseless to take seriously. Luke may simply endeavor to represent fairly what the clerk said (or would have said); historians normally tried to present the most convincing arguments for the various positions they reported in speeches. Luke’s literary function for his own audience might go beyond this if, for his audience, one could mock the absurdity of pagan views by simply recounting them (see comment on Acts 14:15–17).[6217] Luke’s ideal audience might well laugh at the sober clerk’s assertion.
UNDENIABLE FACTS (19:36)
The civic leader’s quieting an audience and warning it against rashness parallels Gamaliel’s role earlier in the book (5:38);[6218] Luke welcomes reasoned defenses of toleration of his movement, whether from Jewish, Roman, or other leaders. The verb for “staying calm” (καταστέλλω) is also used for the clerk’s quieting the crowd’s members (19:35); since these are its only two uses in Luke-Acts (or, for that matter, in the NT),[6219] it is clear that the clerk wants them to remain in their quieted, nonriotous state.
The basis for calmness is that Artemis is so glorious (19:35), and the matter so undeniable, that her cult can be in no danger at all (pace the fearmongering claim of 19:27). The clerk’s term for “rash, reckless” (προπετές) rhetorically balances his διοπετοῦς in 19:35;[6220] since each appears in Luke-Acts only here (and only one of the terms appears anywhere else in the NT),[6221] the similar sound is probably deliberate, fitting the skilled rhetoric expected of a city official.[6222]
The “undeniable facts” might make sense as the clerk’s speech within the narrative world but on the larger level are Lukan irony: the facts are quite deniable.[6223] As noted on Acts 19:35, probably even the Ephesians did not literally believe that their statue fell from heaven (and certainly no one else did)! But beyond its hyperbole, the clerk’s point would persuade the audience: Artemis worship would surely not be banished, contrary to Demetrius’s hyperbolic charge (19:27).
(3) Empty Charges (19:37)
The clerk here either refutes the sort of charges implied by Demetrius (cf. 19:25–27) or notes the kind of charges that would have been actionable, which Demetrius failed to bring in court because he could not prove them. The point here is not to settle the legal questions, however, but to quiet the mob; legal questions could, if necessary, be settled legally and in the appropriate manner.
A FALSE CASE
That the official uses a form of the verb ἄγω for the crowd’s bringing Gaius and Aristarchus forward may be conciliatory language, as if the crowd could have intended only a legal hearing (17:19); Luke gives a harsher perspective in 19:29 (συναρπάσαντες; though cf. also his use of a form of ἄγω in 18:12). To focus the blame on Demetrius (19:38) rather than on the majority of his audience, at least until they have heard him out (19:40), is better for maintaining a hearing and calming them down. In the long run, it will also be more shaming to (and provocative for) Demetrius. One might use care when criticizing a respected person (Hermog. Method 18.434); but while Demetrius may be influential with those whom the elite considered the rabble, he hardly belongs to the high elite.
How can the town clerk know that Paul’s companions are not guilty of such crimes? On the basis of what Luke reports, it is reasonable to guess that Paul’s Asiarch friends (19:31) may have delivered word to him, but whether or not this is the case, his affirmation is not likely to prove controversial. Even Demetrius has not offered such extreme charges (which are the epitome of vileness and hence function hyperbolically). The point is that Paul’s companions have committed no crime worth circumventing the courts and acting in a riotous, disorderly manner that might invite the governor’s retribution. Ironically, while an Ephesian official defends Paul’s circle against the charges of temple violation (via reductio ad absurdum) and (less absurdly) blasphemy against a pagan deity, Ephesian Jews later charge Paul with these very offenses regarding Jerusalem’s temple (21:28), despite his obvious monotheism! This presentation is useful for Luke’s apologetic: if Paul would not violate the former, he would hardly violate the latter.
TEMPLE ROBBERY
Given charges that monotheists desecrated polytheists’ sacred space (see discussion below), the denial here serves Luke’s larger apologetic as well as the official’s rhetoric. It seems that ancients could employ the expression “temple robber” (ἱερόσυλος) metaphorically for any who committed sacrilege of a similar nature[6224] (an accusation later leveled at Paul in Jerusalem, 24:6), but in any case, a legally actionable offense would include somehow desecrating the temple, the image, or something pertaining directly to the goddess.
The charge of temple robbery was among the most serious in antiquity; it could have led to the death of the accused had not the matter been so happily deniable in this instance. Conquerors were expected to leave sanctuaries untouched,[6225] though some ravaged or destroyed them.[6226] All ancient Mediterranean cultures recognized destroying temples[6227] or seizing things in a shrine[6228] as acts of impiety.
Though it did happen,[6229] theft from a temple was a heinous offense;[6230] those who committed it would then “battle against” deities.[6231] Those who listed perpetrators of particularly severe crimes frequently included temple robbers;[6232] temple robbery even became a rhetorical commonplace for a severe offense.[6233] Most believed that the gods would avenge this insult,[6234] sometimes even with fire from heaven.[6235] A more typical literary example is the case of Pyrrhus, who plundered even the gifts in a temple (Appian Hist. rom. 3.12.1); after the gods sent vengeance by a storm, he restored the gifts and executed all those who had participated in the temple robbery (3.12.2).[6236] After Sulla stole an image of Athena, the gods made him break out in lice and die a horrible death (Paus. 9.33.6). One Menophanes razed Delos, thereby showing contempt for Apollo (3.23.3–4); the god saw to it that Menophanes ended violently (3.23.5). After Himilcon impiously plundered the temples of Demeter and Kore, he suffered the appropriate punishment (Diod. Sic. 14.63.1).[6237]
Another typical case was Prusias, who seized statues from temples that he was destroying (Polyb. 32.15.3, 10–12); plainly he was insane (32.15.8),[6238] fighting gods as well as mortals (32.15.13).[6239] Thus his army was sick on their retreat, the gods displaying their anger immediately (32.15.14). Likewise, Antiochus Epiphanes sought to raid the sanctuary of Artemis in Elymaïs to procure funds, and many Gentiles attributed his insanity and death to this attempted outrage (31.9.1–4).[6240] Naturally, Josephus demurred, attributing it instead to his outrage against the true God’s temple.[6241]
Nevertheless, humans and their courts also executed severe punishments for this crime;[6242] it was considered among the most serious of capital offenses.[6243] Locals who found items missing might pursue foreign priests suspected of the theft.[6244] The only two crimes for which one papyrus does not grant amnesty are murder and “sacrilege against a temple.”[6245] It was said that Alexander slaughtered people who came to him in peace, because their ancestors had violated a temple.[6246]
One particularly noteworthy case was that of Verres, whom Cicero prosecuted for exploiting his office in Sicily. Cicero claims that, for Verres, “no sanctuary is too holy for money to defile it” (Verr. 1.2.4 [LCL, 7:73]). Verres plundered numerous sanctuaries,[6247] stealing statues[6248]—indeed, all the costliest gods of Sicily (1.5.14). When those suspected of robbing a temple fled prosecution elsewhere, Verres solicited their help for his deeds (2.4.13.30). Surely, Cicero warned, such a man must be suffering divine judgment (2.1.3.7–8). Indeed, he stole statues from Apollo’s sanctuary at Delos (2.1.17.46), something even the Persians feared to do (2.1.18.48); the statues were recovered when the ship was wrecked (2.1.18.46), and Verres could expect judgment (2.1.18.47). He plundered Diana’s (Artemis’s) sanctuary at Perga, even stripping the gold from Diana’s image (2.1.20.54; 2.4.32.71).[6249] Cicero pretends to pass over quickly the seizure of other items from Syracuse’s sanctuaries (2.4.59.131). In his closing argument, Cicero then calls on all the gods whose temples Verres violated to bring Verres to justice with the court (2.5.72.184–89).[6250]
The temple of Artemis was considered particularly inviolable, long famous as a sanctuary and place of asylum.[6251] (Ancients viewed temples in general in this manner, but some temples gained particular reputations for this feature [cf. comment on Acts 19:29].) Plundering a temple of Artemis warranted death.[6252]
Like other ancient temples, Ephesus’s Artemis temple also functioned as a bank, but this one in Ephesus became particularly famous for this feature (see comment on Acts 19:25). Temples often thus contained great wealth,[6253] inviting plunder from those who disregarded their sacredness. Caesar claims that he thwarted his enemies from pilfering the temple of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesus.[6254] That Ephesus had experienced a major scandal with the mismanagement of temple funds a mere decade or so earlier (see comment on Acts 19:25) can have only exacerbated Ephesians’ sensitivity to such concerns.
JEWS, SACRILEGE, AND BLASPHEMY
Because of Jewish insistence on only one God, Jews in particular were sometimes suspected of sacrilege against pagan shrines (cf. Rom 2:22).[6255] Josephus, with his apologetic emphasis, distances Jews from such charges;[6256] pagan Egyptians complained that when Jews controlled Egypt, they destroyed the idols there,[6257] and others accused Jews of being temple robbers.[6258] The LXX, originating primarily in Alexandria, reinterpreted the biblical text even to forbid speaking against pagan deities.[6259] The genocidal slaughter of Egyptian Jewry in 116–17 C.E. stemmed in part from pagan oracles warning that the “impious” Jews would plunder Egyptian temples if not attacked first.[6260]
Some Jewish apologists emphasized that, far from advocating temple robbery, the Jewish law forbade even mocking others’ gods,[6261] and Philo warns against alienating proselytes by blaspheming their former gods (Spec. Laws 1.53). Some other Jewish apologists, addressing Jewish audiences only, did in fact mock idolatry (e.g., Wis 13:10–14:7; see comment on Acts 14:15), but other Jews, such as Josephus, sought to commend Judaism to pagans as a religion that merited toleration. Christian apologists similarly noted that Christians could hardly be accused of plundering temples, since they do not even know what the temples contain, because they do not frequent them (Tert. Apol. 15.7). When monotheists later did gain the political upper hand, however, pagans complained that Christians did destroy and sacrilegiously plunder pagan shrines (Eunapius Lives 472).[6262] These were sensitive issues.
BLASPHEMING THE GODDESS
That Paul’s colleagues are “not blasphemers” of the goddess serves an obvious function within the narrative world, but for Luke’s audience, it may also sound ironic.[6263] Like most other Jews, Paul opposed idolatry (Acts 17:29) without necessarily denouncing specific cults. But Luke’s audience knows that those reducing God’s glory to the level of idols are the true blasphemers, and may recognize the ironic inversion of the charge. After all, Jesus’s opponents accused him of blasphemy (Luke 22:65) whereas in reality it was those who opposed the authentic Jesus movement who blasphemed against the true God and his Messiah (12:10; Acts 13:45; 18:6; 26:11; cf. Luke 23:39). The truth lies between the clerk’s recognition of Paul’s civil innocence and Demetrius’s complaint that he undermined pagan religion (19:26–27).
The modern reader of Luke’s Greek text, and probably many ancient readers as well, may find the masculine form θεόν here unusual, especially given the feminine definite article here and the feminine form for Artemis as θεά in Acts 19:27.[6264] Ephesus’s own documents, however, similarly alternated between ἡ θεά and ἡ θεός with reference to the goddess (with the latter form predominating)—for example, in I. Eph. 27.[6265] The phrase ἡ θεός is applied to Artemis frequently in Ephesus and almost nowhere else; Ephesians employed θεά for Artemis particularly in phrases similar to the one that Luke reports in Acts 19:27. Together these connections with local Ephesian usage suggest a careful knowledge of features of Ephesian language and hence authentic experience or dependence on someone or a source with such knowledge.[6266]
(4) Lawful Venues (19:38–39)
Instead of stirring up a mob, Demetrius ought to bring matters to court; if more discussion is needed, it should be had in the regular civic assembly, not during a spontaneous gathering or (on another view of this event) as an unannounced issue during a meeting of the assembly. Just as Achaia’s Roman governor refused to accept a weak case (18:14–15), the honorable city clerk of Ephesus refuses to pander to a mob the way Macedonian officials in Philippi (16:20–23) and Thessalonica (17:5–9) did.[6267]
PROCONSULS (19:38)
Paul faces mobs in 14:5, 19; 16:22; 17:5–8; and perhaps 18:17, but while authorities sometimes accommodate mob pressure (16:22; 17:8–9), they also can protect people from it (21:32; cf. 18:14–16), as here. The clerk here employs a variety of expressions suitable to a legal setting, specifying proper means as opposed to mob demands.[6268] That the “courts are open”[6269] suggests to many an assize day. A proconsul or his deputies (some think that at this time only the latter were available in Asia; see below) would travel and hold court in the capital of each conventus, or assize district. There were at least nine such districts in Asia, including Smyrna, Pergamum, and Tralles (cf. Pliny E. N.H. 5.29.105–26).[6270] Ephesus was one such conventus capital.[6271] This claim suggests that the proconsul or his deputy is again in Ephesus at the time (a suggestion that could make the warning of Acts 19:40 more ominous, though the provincial government would have learned of the riot, in any event).[6272]
Many commentators note that the reference to “proconsuls” is unusual Greek.[6273] It is next to impossible that Luke, as an urban citizen of the Roman Empire, was unaware that Rome assigned only one proconsul per province.[6274] The expression may well be a generalizing plural;[6275] proconsuls carried on such work in all the provinces. Yet Luke nowhere else speaks of proconsuls with a generalizing plural, and so scholars point to a special circumstance that may help explain it here. These events are close enough to the mid-50s in Pauline chronology that many have argued that “proconsuls” refers to the unusual state of affairs at precisely this time. Nero’s mother, Agrippina, had the proconsul Marcus Junius Silanus poisoned shortly after Nero’s accession in October 54 or, at the latest, in December 54 or January 55 C.E.[6276] These scholars thus point to the proconsul’s interim successors, either Nero’s envoys Helius and Celer (who helped assassinate Silanus)[6277] or, more likely, Silanus’s three deputies.[6278]
Some scholars are dissatisfied with this explanation; it would have been simpler to mention “the proconsul” if one was in office and to simply mention the continuance of courts if he was not.[6279] “Proconsuls” may be an unusual way to speak of one proconsul, but it was perhaps an even more unusual way to speak of those who were not technically proconsuls, unless it conveys “a touch of obsequious respect.”[6280] If the riot occurs during the interregnum before a new proconsul arrived, a generalizing plural might make better sense. Moreover, for the members of Luke’s audience—who would know that provinces did not have multiple proconsuls simultaneously, and probably would not be aware of the political situation in Asia at the time the narrative depicts (unless they were Ephesians themselves)—a generalizing plural is probably the only way they could have taken it. The generalizing plural is thus a safe guess; the more detailed explanation is possible but uncertain.[6281] Even if Luke is aware of finer points of the events, he at most alludes to them, mostly obscuring them by his concise way of recounting only what is relevant; his audience, unaware of such details, would thus likely assume a generalizing plural about proconsuls in provinces.
COURTS IN SESSION (19:38)
The clerk’s explicit naming of Demetrius would serve as a public rebuke.[6282] Still, that the clerk stops with an exhortation to Demetrius to use legal methods, rather than with any threat of punishment for him as well as for the city assembly as a whole (19:40), suggests that the clerk reads the situation as politically charged. If Demetrius has led a public defense of Artemis’s honor, he would be popular, and a stronger denunciation might help neither the immediate situation nor the clerk’s political standing (it would, in fact, augment Demetrius’s standing with the latter’s partisans).
Other instigators of riots could face harsher punishments. Individuals charged with stirring unrest could face exile or execution.[6283] Punishments could apply to Demetrius’s entire guild (19:24–25). Although Dio Chrysostom ultimately urges Tarsus to accept the linen workers as citizens (Or. 34.23), he warns that the linen workers should be expelled from popular assemblies (ἐκκλησίαις) if they stir insurrection and disorder (34.21). Indeed, even filing frivolous charges was unwise; Dio also warns the Tarsians not to engage in pointless complaints lest they lose the right of “free speech”; he notes that Ionia has forbidden such accusations.[6284]
Courts were held not in the commercial agora next to the theater but probably in the state agora further east, across from the prytaneion, the equivalent of a city hall.[6285] Paganism would not have felt threatened there; a temple, probably of Augustus, stood in its center, and the sanctuary of Hestia Boulaia was nearby; statues of Artemis of Ephesus have also been found in that area.[6286] To reach the court from the theater, one would follow Marble Street just past the length of the commercial agora and turn left on to Curetes Street, which would lead toward the large state (civic) agora.[6287]
Demetrius may have tried to preserve his own honor by threatening to prosecute Paul if he did catch him. (Among themselves, his partisans probably viewed city officials as guilty of prejudicial collusion with outsiders hostile to the sacred local goddess. If they did not, they would quickly repudiate Demetrius as having brought them into public association with what was shameful.) It is possible that Paul was convicted in absentia, but Luke’s confidence in Acts 19:38–39 (especially in the legal system as implied in 19:39) makes this appear doubtful. Had the courts condemned Paul, Luke’s apologetic would need to explain how the courts were deceived, not express confidence in their support. More likely, embarrassed supporters (19:31) would have ensured that the matter never came to trial, and Demetrius, having achieved local honor enough in his circle for defending the cult, would be satisfied with his inability to bring Paul to court so long as Paul stayed out of the city (cf. 20:18). And it is unlikely that Paul would be welcome in Ephesus again as a public sage, drawing crowds and gaining support within the establishment. Both Paul’s former patrons and his enemies would prefer his absence from Ephesus.[6288]
THE LAWFUL ASSEMBLY (19:39)
Assemblies of the people were often conducted in theaters,[6289] the venue of this scene (19:29). Although Luke has occasionally called the mob an “assembly” (ἐκκλησία, 19:32, 40),[6290] he has also used “crowd” (19:33, 35; on his use of ἐκκλησία, see comment on Acts 19:32). Here the clerk speaks of a “legal assembly”—that is, in contrast to the current one[6291]—although in Ephesus the regular assembly also met in the theater (see comment on Acts 19:29). Ancient readers knew well “the distinction between a properly and legally convened Assembly of the people—in exercise of the supreme powers that belonged to the people and could be exercised only through a lawful Assembly called together according to certain rules—and a mere assemblage of the people to hear a statement by a magistrate or give vent to some great popular feeling in a crisis.”[6292] When jurors were particularly enraged about an alleged offense that may or may not have been committed, orators might remind them to judge the case, not the law; they could make laws only on the proper days.[6293]
Under the empire, citizen assemblies even of free cities probably met relatively infrequently.[6294] (They were, however, much more relevant in this period than by the mid-second century and later.)[6295] Because one inscription in Ephesus suggests one regular assembly per month (I. Eph. 27.54) and John Chrysostom suggests three assemblies in Ephesus per month,[6296] some scholars suggest that Ephesus had one regular or sacred and two additional meetings a month, which was similar to the schedule in Athens.[6297]
Thus some believe that this was a legal assembly (with matters being brought before the town clerk) but not a regular one,[6298] the issue simply being that it went out of control. Given the use of irony in ancient rhetoric, one could well imagine a speaker condemning a disorderly meeting as no real meeting at all.[6299] Yet Luke’s narrative can also read as if this was an unscheduled mob scene (if the earlier uses of “assembly” are ironic).[6300] After all, why should the accusers raise the matters in a “regular assembly” as opposed to the sort of additional assembly this view proposes for this occasion? Demetrius could also whip up mob support for a regularly scheduled meeting, but if Paul’s case were really on the docket, his absence (which Luke would not likely invent; cf. 19:30–31) is harder to explain. More likely, a complaint such as the one they offered should have started in the courts rather than occupying the entire citizen assembly. The matter is thus debated.
(5) Answering to Rome (19:40–41)
Rome could not be safely ignored. Rome was increasingly invested in Ephesus,[6301] an involvement that the Asiarchs, the clerk, and other officials of the city and province probably found to their own advantage.[6302] Although romanization was merely a veneer in much of the empire (especially in rural areas), it did affect cities even in the East, including Ephesus.[6303] If the clerk or other leaders of the city had to plead on the city’s behalf, they would praise the emperor’s or other Roman official’s benevolence and mercy before announcing their dependence on them.[6304]
THE DANGER
The language and imagery of this scene fit the circumstances but also skillfully fit Luke’s purposes. For Luke, the clerk’s “we are in danger” (κινδυνεύομεν, with respect to Rome) rightly answers to Demetrius’s “there is danger” (κινδυνεύει, with respect to Artemis being abandoned; 19:27, the only other use in Acts). Because Demetrius had failed to “bring accusation” in the appropriate forum (19:38), the city could be “accused” (19:40). Thus the charge of στάσις, wrongly leveled against Paul (Acts 24:5), properly belonged instead to his opponents (cf. 23:7, 10; Luke 23:19, 25). Just as there was no rightful cause for convicting Jesus (Luke 23:4, 14, 22; Acts 13:28) or Paul (Acts 22:24; 23:28; 25:18, 27; 28:18, 20), there was no justifiable cause for this mob’s behavior (19:40).[6305]
Mobs normally acted without thought for the consequences,[6306] as ancient observers recognized (Max. Tyre 27.6). Nevertheless, consequences often followed, or at least were the subject of warnings, as here.[6307] During Nero’s reign a mob action in Pompeii (where gladiatorial games led to a riot and some visitors’ deaths) caused the banning of such gatherings for ten years and, in addition, the exile of the show’s sponsor.[6308] Later in the first century, Dio Chrysostom warned a rioting mob in his own city of Prusa that Rome would hear about it, as it did about all improper assemblies (Or. 46.14).[6309] About a century after the riot that Luke describes, when bakers’ meetings in Magnesia led to a strike and public riots, the proconsul promised to punish any further infractions.[6310] Cities that engaged in riots could, at a minimum, lose Rome’s respect.[6311]
Twice in the first century Rome investigated matters surrounding the Artemisium itself—first, regarding its offering of asylum to suppliants[6312] and, second, in the proconsul’s censure of conspicuous corruption about 44 C.E.[6313] By the time depicted in this narrative, the temple establishment, like the city government as a whole, currently needs no negative publicity.
LOSING FREE STATUS
The most ominous prospect would be for Ephesus to lose its status as a “free city” (civitas libera);[6314] free cities losing their freedom was the greatest disgrace possible (Pliny Ep. 8.24.7). This honor and measure of autonomy remained completely contingent on Roman goodwill,[6315] and riotous behavior was the surest way to lose the privilege.[6316] Cyzicus had lost this privilege for allowing the execution of some Roman citizens, “apparently in connection with a riot.”[6317] Intercity violence in Pompeii during a gladiatorial show in 59 C.E. led to the revocation of its right to such shows for ten years;[6318] Prusa lost its right of assembly before 102 C.E., “probably because of riots.”[6319]
This prospect was unlikely for a mostly unplanned outcry confined to a few hours in the theater (and defending Artemis rather than criticizing Rome) and with no fatalities, especially in prominent and wealthy Ephesus. Yet no official would care to offer provocation; the privilege depended entirely on Rome’s favor, as noted above, and Rome was already looking for excuses in this period to reduce such privileges.[6320] If Tarsus did not address its disunity, Dio Chrysostom warned, Rome might intervene, threatening their “right of free speech [παρρησίαν] altogether.”[6321]
Ephesus’s “freedom” was a significant privilege. The highest status belonged to Rome’s “colonies,” with municipia and other towns with the Roman franchise next, followed by “Latin” towns; after these were the “free” cities “(Ephesus, Smyrna, Tarsus, Antioch of Syria), meaning their internal affairs were governed by their own laws, or ‘federate’ (Athens, Tyre, Rhodes),” even though this privilege did not fit the normal administration of the imperial period.[6322] Rome preferred permanent municipal senates (with permanent interests in Roman order), but Ephesus, as a “free” city, apparently continued to follow the Greek model of annually selecting its city councilors (by lot) in this period (I. Eph. 1003–4, 1009).[6323]
Having calmed the crowd by affirming Artemis’s greatness, and then sobered the calmed crowd with warnings of Roman intervention, the official is finally able to disband the assembly (Acts 19:40, end; in most English translations, 19:41). The matter would not likely be finished, however. Publicly associating Demetrius with the risk of the city’s demotion would cause him to lose face in front of many of his fellow citizens. Demetrius would likely look for subsequent means to respond, to regain his honor. Demetrius might be happy to escape charges himself, but if he wished to press his case and recoup his honor he could counter with a charge that Paul was guilty of sedition.[6324] This charge possibly could be aided by the association of the imperial cult with local religion. Because of the local prestige of the Artemis cult, Rome sought to associate the imperial cult with it.[6325] This connection became especially clear after the emperor Claudius’s second wife, Agrippina, became linked with Artemis in 50/51 C.E.; the coins portray Diana (Artemis) of Ephesus on one side and the imperial couple (with the claim THEOGAMIA, “divine marriage”) on the other.[6326] The presence of the imperial cult might lend to any assaults on the dignity of Ephesus’s deities (Acts 19:26) potentially dangerous political implications (cf. 17:7).
Because Paul was Jewish (despite the schism in the synagogue, 19:8–9), his monotheism would be tolerated if he were not actually attacking the imperial cult, but the accumulation of enemies’ charges from various locales was gradually building toward a potential case against him (21:28; 24:5). That his ministry had become controversial would also make it embarrassing to former supporters like the Asiarchs. Although Luke emphasizes that Paul had already planned a departure (19:21–22), Paul’s decision to leave Ephesus would reduce complications for the new movement and undoubtedly relieve his supporters.