39. The Third Missionary Journey of the Apostle Paul. The Sojourn in Ephesus. The Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians. The Riot in Ephesus

But so indefatigable a worker as the Apostle Paul could not long enjoy repose. He was drawn by the expanse of wide activity, even when accompanied by extraordinary labors and dangers, and, feeling upon himself the obligation of pastoral oversight over the numerous churches he had founded, he spent a few days of rest in composing the plan of a third great missionary journey—precisely with the aim of visiting all the churches he had established. And so, having spent some time in Antioch, he set out and traveled in order through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples. In Galatia he gave orders that collections of alms for the poor of Jerusalem should be made on Sundays, and then, having made the circuit of the surrounding churches, he directed his course to Ephesus, which he chose this time as the center of his apostolic activity. No city could have been better chosen from which the Gospel might easily spread throughout all Asia.

Ephesus, as the capital of ancient Ionia, was the cradle of that celebrated Ionian civilization which, transplanted to Greece, found its highest development in Athens. Situated not far from the gulf of the Mediterranean Sea, between Smyrna and Miletus, Ephesus was that famous city where East and West met—Asia and Europe—and a multitude of merchant ships made regular voyages between it and Corinth. Yet despite the influx of Western ideas into it, it preserved with extraordinary fidelity the religion of the ancient Asiatic gods, and its most venerated deity was Artemis. This was the well-known Asiatic Astarte, merely under a Greek name, and her cult, grounded as it was in the worship of the crude generative forces of nature, was distinguished by the most unbridled licentiousness. The temple of Ephesian Artemis was celebrated throughout the world and counted among the wonders of the world. Burned by Herostratus, it was rebuilt with even greater magnificence, so that by her fame Artemis overshadowed the other deities of Asia. Since this temple enjoyed the right of asylum, all that was criminal and base tended to congregate around it, and this, together with the corrupting influence of the cult itself, made Ephesus one of the most depraved cities in the world. Like Corinth, it was one of the largest cities of the pagan world, and within it every conceivable religion and idea met and coexisted. As in other great cities, there was a Jewish synagogue there, and alongside it there flourished schools that represented something intermediate between Judaism and Christianity—for example, the school of the disciples of John the Baptist, who, having received his preaching of repentance, regarded it as final and had formed a distinct community. The diversity of religious schools and communities fostered an extraordinary excitement of religious thought, and in the Jewish synagogue preachers frequently appeared who shone with eloquence and the power of their proclamation. Most remarkable among them was Apollos, who, being a native of Alexandria and educated in its celebrated philosophical and religious schools, enraptured the hearers of the synagogue with his preaching. The peculiarity of his teaching was that, under the influence of Alexandrian scholars, regarding the ordinary view of the Old Testament Jewish religion as too crude, he sought to reconcile it with philosophy and therefore gave the biblical narratives a symbolic meaning. At the same time he appears to have already possessed some knowledge of the Christian teaching as well, from which he had also borrowed certain elements. Altogether he was a man of extraordinary learning, a profound student of Holy Scripture, and a highly gifted orator. During the absence of the Apostle Paul he became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, and, through closer acquaintance with Christianity by means of them, he was won entirely to its side and then resolved to depart for Corinth. Rejoicing to have gained for the church so illustrious a preacher, and noting how beneficially his preaching activity might serve among the refined and cultivated Greeks, they wrote for him a letter of commendation to the Corinthian elders. In Corinth his eloquence made an enormous impression, and he became a strong pillar of support for the brethren. He made such skillful use of the Apostle Paul’s preaching, as far as he could become acquainted with it through conversations with Priscilla and Aquila, that in his public disputes with hostile Jews he proved with irresistible force, from their own Scriptures, the messiahship of Christ, and was thus as welcome to the Christians as he was formidable to the Jews. He watered what the Apostle Paul had planted.

The Apostle Paul arrived in Ephesus after Apollos had already departed, and in accordance with his custom he became a regular visitor to the synagogue, where he likewise preached the Gospel. Here he turned first of all to those who had been prepared for Christianity by Apollos’s brilliant preaching, and then began more generally to proclaim the truths of Christianity to the Jews. Since he presented Christianity not in an attractive philosophical guise but in all its simplicity and directness, his preaching naturally aroused hostility among the hardened Jews, and matters reached the point that, after three months of labor, the apostle found himself compelled to leave the synagogue and hired for the gatherings of his disciples and hearers the school of one Tyrannus, a pagan sophist, of whom there were many at that time in Ephesus. This new place of assembly gave the apostle the opportunity to see his fellow-believers daily, whereas in the synagogue this had been possible only three times a week. His labors and preaching did not go without fruit. For a full two years Ephesus served as the center of his missionary activity, and as the fame of his preaching began to spread everywhere, he undoubtedly undertook short journeys to the surrounding districts himself, so that, as Saint Luke testifies, all the inhabitants of Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. In Ephesus itself his fame reached an extraordinary degree—above all on account of the great miracles which God wrought by the hands of Paul. Even his handkerchiefs and aprons possessed healing power, and his fame spread to such an extent that many of the Jewish exorcists who practiced magic and all manner of incantations (Ephesus was filled with such exorcists of the superstitious sort) began to envy him. One of them, Sceva, attempted to imitate him, hoping that by using the little-understood name of Jesus he would work miracles as successfully as the Apostle Paul did. But two of his sons, who practiced exorcism, suffered a complete failure, which led to the total extirpation of such charlatanism in Ephesus. They were summoned to perform an exorcism over a man who was evidently afflicted with violent demonic possession. Addressing the evil spirits, they cried: “We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.” This time, however, the conjuration had no power. The demoniac answered them with a malicious sneer: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” — and then, throwing himself upon them, with incredible strength tore off their clothing and beat them so severely that they barely escaped from the house, bruised and naked. So remarkable an event could not pass unnoticed. Word of it spread among the talkative Ephesians with the speed of lightning and produced no little terror and confusion, the consequence of which was one extraordinarily beneficial occurrence. It turned out that in Ephesus it was not only the pagans who practiced incantations but also some of the newly converted Christians. Terrified by what had happened, they openly repented of their sin, and as proof of the sincerity of their repentance they brought their costly cabalistic books, which had served as the instruments of their trade, and burned them publicly. This secret sorcery had been practiced on such a large scale that the value of the books thus burned by the sorcerers in a burst of repentance amounted to fifty thousand drachmas of silver—equivalent to no less than twelve thousand five hundred rubles in gold. That extraordinary bonfire, which must surely have burned for a considerable time, was so striking a denunciation of the prevailing credulity that it was undoubtedly one of the circumstances which gave the Apostle Paul’s preaching such wide renown throughout all Asia.

During his two-year sojourn in Ephesus the apostle labored not only by word of mouth but also in writing. Through his associates he maintained constant correspondence with various churches, and for the edification of two of them—namely the Corinthian and the Galatian—he composed two epistles known as the Epistle to the Galatians and the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The former was occasioned by the grievous report that the Galatians, who had received the faith so eagerly from the Apostle Paul, had, in accordance with their customary fickleness, been carried away by other preachers—namely, the Judaizing opponents of the apostle. The latter, in order to destroy the work of the apostle they hated, began to portray to the Galatians so enticingly the privileges of the sons of Abraham that the Galatians had even conceived a desire to be under the law (Gal. 4:21). At the same time the very authority of the Apostle Paul had been undermined in their hearts. In order to warn them against this dangerous error, the apostle wrote them an epistle in which, with astonishing clarity, he sets forth the superiority of the new covenant over the old and declares that the sons of Abraham are not those who trace a fleshly lineage from him, but precisely those who believe in Christ (3:7, 29). In defense of his apostleship he reminded them of his extraordinary conversion, adding that the Gospel he preaches is not human, for he “received it and was taught it not from man but through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:11, 12). The Epistle to the Corinthians was occasioned by entirely different circumstances. News had reached the apostle that the Corinthian Christians, having broken their brotherly unity, had divided into several factions, and—after the manner of the Greek philosophical schools bearing the name of this or that sophist—some counted themselves followers of Paul, others of Apollos, others of Cephas, and some of Christ. Some of the brethren had fallen into such error as to begin denying the resurrection of the dead. Into the community had also crept that moral licentiousness which generally characterized Corinth, and the congregation was tolerating in its midst a vile sinner from whom even the pagans turned away in disgust. All these disorders compelled the apostle to address the Corinthians with an extensive epistle in which, with apostolic authority, he exhorted them to abandon their divisions—for it was one and the same Christ who was crucified for all of them, while all other preachers were mere servants of the word: they plant and water, but God gives the growth. “So then neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the growth.” The source of these divisions was the intellectual pride of the Corinthians, and the apostle reminded them that for them as Christians earthly wisdom must occupy a secondary place, “because the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1:25). Having then refuted the error of those who denied the resurrection of the dead and commanded that the grievous sinner be strictly punished, the apostle offered a whole series of instructions on various questions of ecclesiastical and social life, and concluded—in his own hand—with an affectionate greeting: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”

After two years had elapsed, the apostle, considering his work in Ephesus complete, drew up a plan for the continuation of his journey. He intended, after Pentecost, to leave Ephesus in order to visit once more the churches of Macedonia and Achaia founded by him during the second journey, and to sail from Corinth for his fifth visit to Jerusalem, after which he hoped at last to see Rome, the great capital of the civilized world of that day. In accordance with this plan he had already sent two of his associates—Timothy and Erastus, who had been converted by him in Ephesus—to Macedonia, with instructions to rejoin him in Corinth. Erastus, formerly treasurer of the city, was a man of influence and was therefore best fitted to see to the preparations for receiving the apostle as well as to the carrying out of the weekly collections that were at this time engaging the Apostle Paul’s close attention. The visit to Jerusalem was made necessary with a view to delivering to the suffering Christians of that city the alms which the apostle was now gathering among the Gentile churches he had founded. But this plan was disrupted by an event that exposed the apostle’s very life to terrible danger and hastened his departure from Ephesus.

The month of May arrived, in which the celebrated fair of the Ephesia was held in Ephesus, marked by a long succession of festivals dedicated to Artemis. During these festivities the wooden image of the goddess—which according to popular tradition had fallen from heaven—was displayed in the temple for universal veneration. For a whole month the city was overflowing with people streaming in from all the surrounding regions, and was filled to the brim with every kind of revelry. Splendid and colorful processions moved constantly toward the temple; priests and various exorcists reaped a rich harvest in the field of popular superstition; all manner of amusements and games were arranged, and all this was accompanied by the most savage drunkenness and debauchery. Under such circumstances outbursts of popular fanaticism were inevitable, and these frequently marked the celebrations in Ephesus. The same thing happened now. This year there was a noticeable decrease in the unbridled revelry during the Ephesia, and the cause of this decline was well known to all. Not only in Ephesus but in all the principal cities of proconsular Asia a profound interest had been aroused by the preaching of a certain Paul, who in the very capital of idolatry was known to preach calmly that those things made by human hands are no gods at all. Many people had been moved to accept this preaching; even more were those who, under its influence, had come at least to regard the senseless rituals and incantations with indifference—and even the temples and idols themselves. The consequence was that in Ephesus “no small disturbance arose concerning the Way of the Lord.” Paul and his preaching, the “brethren” and their assemblies, were on everyone’s lips, and not a few muttered curses were uttered against them by priests and priestesses, as well as by the hundreds of hangers-on that cluster around every great institution. At last this ill-concealed fury burst into the open. The one who had suffered the greatest losses from the diminishing reverence toward the goddess and her sanctuary was a certain silversmith by name Demetrius, who sold devotees small silver models of the temple and figures as souvenirs of their visit to Ephesus and its temple. And not only in Ephesus but in every famous center of pagan worship, the demand for these objects generated a large supply of them on the part of craftsmen. Demetrius found that his trade was beginning to be undermined, and, covering himself with zeal for the temple and the goddess, he resolved, so far as lay in his power, to take measures to halt the ruin that threatened him. Having convened an assembly of all the artisans and common workers engaged in this craft, he addressed them with a speech in which he first inflamed their passions with a warning about the ruin threatening them, and then appealed to their dormant fanaticism for vengeance upon the insulted majesty of their temple and the declining glory of the goddess, whom—so he declared—all Asia and all the world worshipped. This speech acted like a spark upon combustible material. Among his hearers a furious cry arose: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and throughout the whole city confusion began. Burning with vengeance against the chief author of their losses, the riotous artisans and craftsmen wanted to seize the Apostle Paul himself, but not finding him in person, they seized two of his associates—Gaius and Aristarchus—and dragged them into the theater for punishment and the jeering of the crowd. Learning of the danger to his beloved associates, the apostle wished to go into the theater himself to sacrifice himself, but the city authorities restrained him, fearing that the popular tumult would be aggravated. This tumult threatened the danger of a massacre not only for the Christians but also for the Jews, whom the people did not distinguish from the Christians. To avert this danger, a certain Alexander came forward from among the Jews, attempting to address the crowd with a speech declaring that the Jews were in no way guilty in this matter. But no sooner had the crowd made out the Jewish features of the speaker than it drowned out his speech with a furious cry: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and was on the verge of carrying out one of those terrible massacres that the Jews had more than once endured in Alexandria and other great cities of the East. The danger was terrible, but fortunately it was averted by the courage of the city’s keeper of order, who enjoyed the general respect of the population. Disregarding all personal danger, he stepped boldly before the face of the enraged crowd and addressed it with a calm but weighty speech that brought the crowd to its senses. “Men of Ephesus!” he exclaimed: “What man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great goddess Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Since then these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.” This speech at once produced a striking effect. The tumult ceased. The prudent words of a universally respected man caused the crowd to repent of its senseless riot and to fear its possible consequences—as the keeper of order had hinted in his speech, alternately employing flattery, intimidation, instruction, and reassurance. It vividly reminded them that since Asia was a senatorial rather than an imperial province, governed therefore by a proconsul with a few officials rather than by a propraetor with a legion of soldiers, they themselves were responsible for the maintenance of good order and would certainly be held to account as the instigators of the breach of the peace. A single day of disorder could adversely affect their privileges for years to come. And indeed, such a disturbance on the part of the Ephesians was (as the keeper of order argued) unworthy, since the majesty of their temple had suffered no insult; it was unjustified, since nothing could be proved against these persons; it was unnecessary, since other and more lawful means of redress were at hand; and finally, if neither pride nor justice could move them, at least fear of the Romans might restrain them. The people were greatly ashamed of their conduct, and the keeper of order was able to dismiss them from the theater.

Thus the danger to the Christians and Jews was averted for the time being, but for the Apostle Paul personally any further sojourn in the city had become impossible, since his very appearance would have been sufficient to rekindle the savage fanaticism of the Ephesians. He therefore hastened to leave the city and directed his course to Macedonia.