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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