Ephesians. Lynn H. Cohick
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to the general social world in reconstructing the recipients. Such an approach is similar to 1 Peter, James, or Hebrews, letters whose addressees are unspecified in terms of a city. Judging by the content of the letter itself, several tentative conclusions can be drawn about the audience receiving this letter. Unlike his tension-filled letter to the Galatians, in this epistle Paul is comfortable with the congregation. They are on good terms, and Paul feels his time among them has been effective (1 Cor 16:9). But that does not mean that Paul’s time in Ephesus was one long holiday. Paul informs the Corinthians of serious struggles and suffering he endured in Ephesus, and Acts describes the riot that flared up surrounding Paul’s teaching and healing. It seems probable that the Ephesian Christians faced similar hostility, though not of the same magnitude. Both the Philippian and the Thessalonian churches faced serious persecutions, and Acts indicates that Paul was persecuted harshly in both cities. The same pattern likely existed in Ephesus.
First Corinthians gives us a window into at least a few members of the Ephesian church. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8) and his coauthor was Sosthenes (1 Cor 1:1). Was this the same person who in Acts was a leader in the synagogue in Corinth? The fact that Paul offers no introduction beyond the label “brother” suggests that Sosthenes was well known to the Corinthians, lending weight to the conclusion that this person met Paul in Corinth, and traveled with him to Ephesus. Paul notes that some people from Chloe reported divisions within the Corinthian church. We know precious little about these people, or Chloe for that matter. The strongest suggestion is that they were outsiders to the local Christian community because they brought what Paul evaluates as unbiased information. We could reasonably surmise that Chloe’s people (and perhaps Chloe herself) were members of the Ephesian church. In the final chapter he mentions Timothy coming to the Corinthians, presumably from Ephesus. He also notes the presence of Apollos, who was not anxious to travel to Corinth in the immediate future, and we might assume that he remained in Ephesus. From 2 Cor 2:4 and 7:6–11 we learn that Titus was with Paul in Ephesus, and took his “tearful” letter to them. Finally Paul makes special mention of Aquila and Priscilla and the church meeting in their home in 1 Cor 16:19. This Jewish couple is described in Acts (18:2) as originally coming to Corinth from Rome (being expelled under Emperor Claudius). Paul shared their profession (tent making or leather working), and lived with them. After eighteen months, all three left Corinth and headed to Ephesus, where it appears the couple remained for some years.
We find them mentioned again by Paul in his letter to the Romans (16:3–4). This curiosity has prompted the theory that Rom 16 was actually sent to the Ephesians, perhaps as a letter of recommendation for Phoebe, the deacon of Cenchreae. Textual evidence is called upon to support this theory: the earliest copy of Romans (P46) includes chapter 16 after the doxology of 16:25–27, for example, suggesting the names were attached by a later copyist. If this reconstruction is accurate, then we have a decidedly clearer picture of some who populated the Ephesian church. However, serious doubts are raised, including that every ancient manuscript contains the listing. And we have every reason to suppose that Priscilla and Aquila, with Claudius’s edict rescinded, returned to Rome along with many of their Jewish compatriots. In Paul’s other letters to churches he started, he does not offer a list of people to receive his greetings (see Galatians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians). Would someone in Ephesus feel snubbed if Paul forgot (or declined) to mention them by name? Instead, it seems most likely that the list of names in Rom 16:1–16 was intended for Rome, an opportunity for Paul to connect with the wider community by noting that he has friends and acquaintances among them.48
The Ephesian letter recipients line up with the social patterns of the larger Greco-Roman culture. They are members of families: slaves or masters, parents, spouses. They seem to be neither wealthy nor destitute; indeed, their financial status is not addressed directly. A sizable number, perhaps the majority, are Gentile, for Paul speaks of himself and other Jews as “we” and the letter’s recipients as “you” Gentiles. This distinction remains crucial for Paul’s argument concerning the advantages wrought in Christ, namely that through his death he made the two groups one in the church. Yet it also appears that some members of his ministry team working in Ephesus were Jewish, including Aquila, Priscilla, Timothy, Apollos, and perhaps Sosthenes.
The City of Ephesus in Paul’s Day
The mixture of Jew and Gentile revealed in Paul’s letter mirrored the larger social context. Josephus informs us that a sizable Jewish population of 2000 families was resettled in this region by the Seleucids in the late third century BCE.49 Probably some moved to Ephesus and established their families and businesses. Jews in Ephesus were permitted to practice their ancestral customs, although the latter half of the first century BCE included disputes with the Gentile leadership in the city. At the end of the first century BCE, Augustus established that Jews could follow their own laws and customs, could send money and donations to Jerusalem, and were excused from appearing in court on the Sabbath. Jews with Roman citizenship were exempt from military service. In Paul’s day, Jews and Gentiles apparently interacted with equanimity. Despite the fact that a synagogue has not been excavated in Ephesus, both Josephus and the book of Acts informs us of Jews meeting together.50
The population of Ephesus likely numbered 200,000 to 250,000 in the first century CE, making it the third largest city in the Roman Empire (Rome and Alexandria took first and second place).51 The city had much to offer its inhabitants. It was located strategically at the mouth of the Cayster River on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea, providing easy transport of goods and people into and out of western Asia Minor. In 31 BCE Ephesus was named the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and within two years it included an imperial temple dedicated to Roma and the divine Julius Caesar. Wealth poured into the city, providing the resources to build magnificent temples, monuments, fountains, theaters, baths, and houses. A visitor today can walk the lengthy paved main street lined with elaborately carved columns and arches, remains of its glory days. Terrace houses built into the hillside retain their beautiful mosaic and fresco interior decorations, attesting to the affluence of this ancient city. In the 50s and 60s CE, Ephesians might be entertained in the grand theater, which seated 25,000, or visit public baths and the gymnasium. The exalted reputation of ancient Ephesus lay primarily in its magnificent temple to Artemis. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, it was about four times larger than the Parthenon in Athens, making it the largest Greek temple in the ancient world. Poets praised its unmatched splendor, including Antipater of Sidon who, comparing the temple to the hanging gardens of Babylon, the colossus, and the pyramids of Egypt, declared “but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.’”52 Sadly today, all that is left of its former majesty is a single column providing a nesting place for birds.
1. Pauline authorship of Ephesians is debated, and a detailed discussion of the matter is found later in this chapter.
2. John Chrysostom Hom. Eph. 1.
3. Jerome Comm. Eph., preface, bk. 1.
4. Martin Luther, Papacy (1520).
5. This term for our purposes does not include nom de plume such as Samuel Clemens’ pen name Mark Twain.
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