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The Book of Acts:
Paul's Later Travels
Thanks to the modern tools of archaeology,
researchers have found much cultural, historical and geographical
background material that supports the biblical account of Paul's trips through the
Mediterranean world.
by Mario Seiglie
In the last two installments in this series we covered events from the start of the Christian Church to Paul's first travels through the Mediterranean world. In this article we conclude our discussion of the book of Acts by covering Paul's trips to Ephesus, Jerusalem and Rome.
The Ephesian scripts
After visiting Corinth Paul began his return journey to Jerusalem by way of Ephesus,
an important city of Asia Minor.
"And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through
the upper regions, came to Ephesus ... And many who had believed came confessing
and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their
books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value
of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord
grew mightily and prevailed" (Acts 19:1,18-20, emphasis added throughout).
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The temple of Diana in Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.. Paul's preaching brought him into conflict with those who made a living from activities associated with idolatrous worship of the goddess. |
One of the seven wonders of the ancient
world
Paul's preaching in Ephesus caused many to turn away from their idols and pagan practices.
This led to an uprising among the craftsmen who made their living making statuettes
of the goddess Diana and her temple.
"And about that time there arose a great commotion about the Way. For a certain
man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no
small profit to the craftsmen.
He called them together with the workers of similar occupation, and said, 'Men, you
know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover you see and hear that not
only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned
away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with hands.
"So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but
also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed,
whom all Asia and the world worship. Now when they heard this, they were full of
wrath and cried out, saying, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' So the whole city
was filled with confusion, and rushed into the theater with one accord, having
seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's travel companions" (Acts 19:23-29).
The temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was four times
the size of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Its ruins were brought to light by the
British archaeologist John T. Wood in 1869. Later he found, in remarkably good condition,
the huge theater mentioned in Acts 19:29, which could seat more than 24,000 people.
William Barclay comments about the temple of Diana: "It was 425 feet long by
220 feet wide by 60 feet high. There were 127 pillars, each the gift of a king. They
were all of glittering marble and 36 were marvelously gilt and inlaid. The great
altar had been carved by Praxiteles, the greatest of all Greek sculptors. The image
of Diana was not beautiful. It was a black, squat, many-breasted figure, signifying
fertility; it was so old that no one knew where it had come from or even of what
material it was made. The story was that it had fallen from heaven" (Daily
Study Bible, 1975, comment on Acts 19:1-7).
Another reference work adds: "Thousands of pilgrims and tourists came to it
from far and near; around it swarmed all sorts of tradesmen and hucksters who made
their living by supplying visitors with food and lodging, dedicatory offerings, and
souvenirs. The Temple of Artemis (Diana) was also a major treasury and bank of the
ancient world, where merchants, kings, and even cities made deposits, and where their
money could be kept safe under the protection of deity" (Richard Longenecker,
The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, 1981, p. 503).
It is not surprising that a lucrative trade of small statues of Diana and her temple
existed in Ephesus. Commenting on verses 24 and 27, A.T. Robertson explains: "These
small models of the temple with the statue of Artemis (Diana) inside would be set
up in the houses or even worn as amulets ... Temples of Artemis (Diana) have been
found in Spain and Gaul (France)" (Online Bible software, 1995, Word Pictures
of the New Testament).
Throughout Europe archaeologists have found many statues of the many-breasted goddess
Diana (or Artemis, as she was called by the Romans). In 1956 an impressive statue
of Diana was discovered in Ephesus; it stands prominently in the museum there.
Into this scene of popular paganism entered the apostle Paul. Demetrius had accused
him of teaching that "man-made gods are no gods at all" (Acts 19:26, New
International Version). In other words, Paul had fearlessly taught keeping the Second
Commandment and avoiding worship of religious images. Thanks to the help of friendly
government officials in Ephesus, Paul was protected and the crowd was finally dispersed.
It is a bit ironic that, although the cult of the goddess Diana gradually died down,
another cult eventually replaced her in Ephesus. "Christianity," says historian
Marina Warner, "fastened on her (Diana) and added such typical feminine Christian
virtues as modesty and shame to her personality ..." (Alone of All Her
Sex, 1976, p. 47). Diana, continues Warner, "was associated with the moon ...
as the Virgin Mary is identified with the moon and the stars' influence as well as
with the forces of fertility and generation" (p. 224).
At the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 the veneration of Mary became an official element
of the Roman church. Warner says about Diana: "Memories of her emblem, the girdle,
survived in the city (Ephesus) where the Virgin Mary was proclaimed Theotokos
(Mother of God), three hundred and fifty years after the silversmiths, who lived
by making statuettes of Diana, rebelled against the preaching of Paul and shouted,
'Great is Diana of the Ephesians' (Acts 19:23-40). There could be, therefore, a chain
of descent from ... Diana to the Virgin, for one tradition also holds that Mary was
assumed into heaven from Ephesus ..." (ibid., p. 280).
Paul's arrest in Jerusalem
From Ephesus Paul hurried to Jeru-salem to stay there "if possible, on the Day
of Pentecost" (Acts 20:16). When he arrived he soon went to the temple to worship
and fulfill a vow along with four other Jewish Christians.
"Now when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in
the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, 'Men of
Israel, help! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people,
the law, and this place; and furthermore he also brought Greeks into the temple and
has defiled this holy place.' (For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian
with him in the
city, whom they had supposed that Paul had brought into the temple)" (Acts 21:27-29).
Paul was arrested on a false charge of having taken a gentile (a non-Israelite) inside
the temple. Next to each temple entrance was an inscription warning everyone that
only Israelites were permitted to enter.
Bruce explains: "That no Gentile might unwittingly enter into the forbidden
areas, notices in Greek and Latin were fixed to the barrier at the foot of the steps
leading up to the inner precincts, warning them that death was the penalty for further
ingress. Two of these notices (both in Greek) have been found-one in 1871 and one
in 1935-the text of which runs: 'No foreigner may enter within the barricade which
surrounds the temple and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself
to blame for his ensuing death" (The New International Commentary of the
New Testament: The Book of Acts, 1974, p. 434).
Paul's Journey to Rome
After Paul's arrest in Jerusalem, the Roman authorities discovered a plot to kill
him and hurriedly sent him to nearby Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea. Since
he was a Roman citizen, a rare and prestigious designation in those days, he was
entitled to full military protection. In Caesarea he submitted to several preliminary
hearings that left him unsatisfied, so he exercised his right as a Roman to appeal
his case to the emperor in Rome.
The voyage to Rome, on a cargo ship, was harrowing. Luke accompanied Paul on the
trip. His narrative is a masterpiece of accuracy down to tiniest details. "Luke's
account of Paul's voyage to Rome," explains The Expositor's Bible Commentary,
"stands out as one of the most vivid pieces of descriptive writing in the whole
Bible. Its details regarding first-century seamanship are so precise and its portrayal
of conditions on the eastern Mediterranean so accurate ... that even the most skeptical
have conceded that it probably rests on a journal of some such voyage as Luke describes"
(Longenecker, p. 556).
The remains of several ships similar to the one described by Luke have been found
on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. They corroborate the precision of Luke's
account. "These grain ships were not small," notes Barclay. "They
could be as large as 140 feet long and 36 feet wide. But in a storm they had certain
grave disadvantages. They were the same at the bow as at the stern, except that the
stern was swept up like a goose's neck. They had no rudder like a modern ship, but
were steered with two great paddles coming out from the stern on each side. They
were, therefore, hard to manage. Further, they had only one mast and on that mast
one great square sail, made sometimes of linen and sometimes of stitched hides. With
a sail like that they could not sail into the wind" (Daily Study Bible,
comment on Acts 27:21).
On the voyage to Rome, Paul and his company were shipwrecked near the island of Malta
and barely made it to the beach without drowning. There they waited several months
until another ship took them to Rome.
The Appian Way
Luke's account continues: "And so we went toward Rome. And from there, when
the brethren heard about us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and Three
Inns" (Acts 28:14-15).
According to archaeological and literary evidence, Luke accurately recounts the way
stations to enter Rome from the west, the shortest route from the nearest seaport.
"At Neapolis, Paul and his contingent turned northwest to travel to Rome on
the Via Appia -the oldest, straightest, and most perfectly made of all the Roman
roads, named after the censor Appius Claudius who started its construction in 312
B.C. During the seven-day stopover at Puteoli, news of Paul's arrival in Italy reached
Rome. So a number of Christians there set out to meet him and escort him back to
Rome. Some of them got as far as the Forum of Appius (Appii Forum), one of the 'halting
stations' built every ten to fifteen miles along the entire length of the Roman road
system ... Others only got as far as the Three Taverns Inn, another halting station
about thirty-three miles from Rome" (ibid., comment on Acts 28:15).
Luke thus provides us with a detailed and accurate account of Paul's apostolic missions
during the first decades of the Church. The book of Acts ends with Paul waiting for
his case to be heard by the emperor. From later historians we learn that he was set
free and continued his apostolic journeys for several years until he was again arrested,
imprisoned and ultimately beheaded in Rome.
We will continue this series with a look at archaeological evidence that illuminates
details of some of Paul's many letters to congregations and members of the early
Church.
GN
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