Paul’s Obligations to Avoid Dishonoring Patrons
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How Were Asiarchs Paul’s Friends (Acts 19:31)?
Luke reports that, during the riot at Ephesus, some Asiarchs who were friends of Paul exhorted him not to address the mob. Commentators on Acts have sometimes wondered how the Paul of Acts, who had settled in Ephesus only recently, came to have friends from the elite of Asia. Part of the solution may be civic elites welcomed and often honored popular speakers who adequately proved their skills on entering a city. ⁹⁵⁵ Luke’s Paul certainly has status and fits the description of a popular teacher in Ephesus (Acts 19:10). ⁹⁵⁶
It also seems the case, however, that we have too frequently read Luke’s claim here in terms of modern notions of friendship among social peers. I previously proposed that Paul’s Asiarch “friends” were his patrons,⁹⁵⁷ a suggestion followed by some others⁹⁵⁸ and developed somewhat more fully here.
Patrons as friends
The Greek ideal of “friendship” involved equality, but in practice “friends” of lower station in this period functioned as clients of their superiors.⁹⁵⁹ Clients were often called “friends” of their patrons, and less commonly patrons were also described as “friends.”⁹⁶⁰ Members of the urban elite often entered “friendships” as political alliances, expecting returns the measure of which was clearly defined by social custom.⁹⁶¹ The most important return a social inferior could provide a patron was public gratitude; such “free” publicity concerning the patron’s generosity augmented the patron’s local social standing, hence could also advance the patron’s political ambitions.⁹⁶²
Urban Roman “clients” in the strictest sense of the term spent much of the day with their patrons, a role that distinguished them from workers.⁹⁶³ Clearly Paul was not a “client” in this strictest sense; Luke indicates that in Ephesus, as in Corinth (Acts 18:3), Paul worked with his own hands and supported others (20:34). Even in a less formal way, the historical Paul wished to avoid the appearance of being a dependent of the Corinthian church.⁹⁶⁴
But there is no reason to doubt that Paul could have made use of public connections with prominent patrons in the less formal sense in which classicists and New Testament scholars have often spoken of patron-client ideology. The ideology was so pervasive in ancient Mediterranean society that most studies suggest that it impacted even rural areas.⁹⁶⁵ Certainly Paul appreciated publicity for the gospel in prominent places (Rom 16:23; Phil 1:13; 4:22), and Luke is eager to show the gospel’s acceptance among other persons of high status (e.g., Acts 1:1; 13:1, 12; 17:12, 34; 18:8), as well as their respect for Paul’s status (16:38–39; 21:39–40; 22:28–29).⁹⁶⁶
Roman citizenship, not yet a widespread grant in the East, may have provided Paul an entrée with the Asiarchs, especially if some of them had received this particular status marker only recently as a result of their office.⁹⁶⁷ Luke also occasionally uses “friendship” language to describe reciprocal obligations, whether for members of the same class or of different classes (Luke 14:12; 16:9; 23:12).
If these Asiarchs were Paul’s patrons, they presumably provided some public support for this new and prominent religious association or philosophic school, perhaps by contributing toward the school or guild hall where Paul and his partisans were meeting (19:9).⁹⁶⁸ Epigraphic evidence does indicate that some later Asiarchs, at least, supported education in Ephesus.⁹⁶⁹ They were patrons in a sense in which we sometimes employ the title even today.
Honor for Sponsors of Religious Associations
A primary purpose for which patrons supported clients and provided benefactions for others was to garner political support for themselves; clients were supposed to publicly praise their patrons, propagating their honor.⁹⁷⁰ Scholars debate the exact function of the office of Asiarch, but however we define it most specifically, Asiarchs belonged to the political class for whom public honors counted heavily.⁹⁷¹
But indiscriminate choices of friends could lead to complications and, in the end, more political harm than good. The network of political alliances in urban Mediterranean society meant that “befriending” another person’s enemy could bring one into enmity relationship with the other person.⁹⁷² For this reason, patrons would need to be careful not to take on clients who might prove to be political liabilities.
Paul’s religious commitments would not necessarily disqualify him for consideration as an apparently safe prospective political investment. Sponsors of religious associations were common, and we know of gentiles who became patrons of synagogues and consequently received honor from them.⁹⁷³ That Luke himself mentions one case (Luke 7:5) indicates that he was familiar with the concept of a nonmember sponsoring a religious association.
But while sponsors of pagan religious associations, like members, might often be pleased to belong to or at least support multiple religious associations, Judaism was monotheistic and forbade involvement in other religions. Did a gentile sponsor for a monotheistic association risk public displeasure, even if he or she did not become a proselyte?⁹⁷⁴ In some locations this may have been the case, but in Asian cities like Sardis⁹⁷⁵ or Aphrodisias,⁹⁷⁶ where the Jewish community was prominent and respected, a patron would profit from the synagogue community’s recognition of his or her benefactions. In this case, members of the elite might be pleased to express generosity toward the synagogue, regardless of the degree of their personal religious sympathies toward Judaism. In return, Asian Jews could acknowledge the benefactions and praise the benefactors without expecting the patron’s exclusive allegiance to their faith. Paul’s ethnically universal monotheism might have a still wider appeal than the synagogue.
But no one in Ephesus with political ambition would have risked associating with someone known to oppose devotion to the city’s patron goddess. Traditionally scholars associated Asiarchs with the office of archiereus (elite priest) for the imperial cult, but more recent studies have called this association into question.⁹⁷⁷ Nevertheless, as holders of prominent public office the Asiarchs would certainly adhere to local and imperial civic religion themselves, and those in Ephesus would be publicly devoted to the worship of the Ephesian Artemis. Ephesians honored the divine emperor near Artemis’s temple;⁹⁷⁸ more importantly, their honors of Artemis (19:28, 34) are too well-known to require discussion here.
Patrons might help pay for a meeting hall, hence lending the credibility of their names to the fledgling movement. In return, however, they would expect honor: Paul’s teaching was spreading widely through all of Asia (19:10), and they might appreciate the public recognition they could gain by supporting a popular and pious group. A complication would arise, however, if that group had or developed powerful enemies; in this case, association with it would prove more of a political liability than a benefit.
Paul’s Obligations to Avoid Dishonoring Patrons
This situation may explain why Luke fails to provide a speech of Paul in Acts 19, as tempted as he may have been to do so. The Paul we know from Acts would not have missed an opportunity to preach, even in the most controversial of circumstances (14:14–18; especially 21:40—22:21); thus it is not surprising that Paul wishes to enter the theater. Concerned for his safety, however, the disciples restrain him (19:30; their intervention proves less successful in 21:12). At least in terms of Greek ideals for egalitarian friendships, concerns and sacrifices for a friend’s safety were paramount.⁹⁷⁹
But beyond any personal concern for Paul that the Asiarchs might have shared with the disciples, they had solid political reasons to urge him not to enter the assembly. On the one hand, the current situation was less severe than it could have been; apart from general monotheism, the object of the assembly’s fury currently remained ambiguous to most of its members (19:32). On the other hand, an attempt at damage control could make the situation worse: if Paul spoke out, he greatly increased the risk of being assumed to have caused the disorder (cf. 19:33–34).
This risk also threatened the reputation of Paul’s supporters; too many people already knew that these Asiarchs were his “friends.” Even court cases might involve their share of shouting, but at least they allowed for some debate and clarification (19:38–39); allowing such a large mob (the theater could seat some 20,000 people)⁹⁸⁰ to associate Paul with defaming Artemis, however, would prove far more politically damaging to his friends. For the sake of the church’s long-range stability in Ephesus, it might be better for Paul to avoid further risking his “friends’” dishonor even at the expense of neglecting a dramatic preaching opportunity.
Accepting the stereotype that Jews disrespected hence could rob temples (19:37), the crowds shouted down the Jewish speaker (19:33–34) who was probably trying to dissociate the Jewish community from Paul’s preaching against idols (cf. 14:15; 17:29–30; 1 Thess 1:9). Their wish to dissociate themselves from Paul is understandable even within Luke’s narrative world; after all, Paul had earlier divided their synagogue and left with most of the converts (Acts 19:8–9). It is therefore not surprising that Asian Jews later accuse Paul of stirring unrest (cf. 21:27–28; 24:5), though in Luke’s irony it is Paul’s success at propagating Jewish monotheism that lies beneath this charge (19:26–27)!
The riot in Ephesus renders Paul a political liability and may help explain, as commentators frequently suggest, why he dare not enter the city later when he wishes to meet with the elders there. (Luke could politely omit this motive in 20:16, just as he omits mention of the cause of the Jewish expulsion from Rome in 18:2, which may have involved debates over Jesus’s identity).⁹⁸¹
After this point Paul’s former “friends” might at the least prove more cautious in their association with him. This would become the case all the more if any court action (cf. 19:38) went against him.⁹⁸² To be sure, ancient ideals of friendship involved trust in and loyalty to one’s friends, which included rejecting false accusations about them and maintaining fidelity in the face of hardship.⁹⁸³ In the traditional ideal, an aristocrat could not in good conscience engage in legal proceedings against a friend and justice demanded that patronal bonds, like those of kinship, be preserved.⁹⁸⁴ But in the world of urban aristocratic politics, neither friendships nor enmities were necessarily permanent.⁹⁸⁵
If Paul’s preaching was as popular in Ephesus as Luke claims, Luke is not straining his narrative’s plausibility by allowing Paul some patrons from among the political elite. This portrayal fits Luke’s tendency to report the responses of the social elite, especially when they were favorable. Luke was also well aware, however, that Paul advanced his gospel only in the face of considerable conflict. Paul’s agenda to convert polytheists to monotheism brought him into conflict with forces that could challenge the nominal support of his elite allies. Although Paul’s undisputed letters do not name specific patrons in Ephesus, he mentions that he had a notable “open door” for ministry, and that there were many adversaries (1 Cor 16:8–9). The turn of events narrated so dramatically in Acts 19 suggests that Luke knew that the adversaries (which Luke portrays as mostly rabble) won out in the short run.
Yet Luke’s optimism about the success of the mission, despite opposition (9:31; 19:20; 28:30–31), provides the context for individual details of his narrative. For Luke, Paul’s contacts among prominent members of the Asian elite provides a foretaste of the gospel’s ultimate success even among those who, like his own patron (1:1), might risk the greatest loss of status.