3rd Missionary Trip - Lorin

At Ephesus, more than in other places, she took on a grotesque multi-mannary form as a mother goddess. 100
She had -- supposedly in the legends about her -- a vicious side who could brutally kill and destroy those who
got in her way or challenged her in some manner. Thus when the Gospel was pitted against this cultic tradition, it
was facing a religious orientation with a widespread reputation of destroying all its enemies. With the very violent
traditions regarding the behavior of this supposed deity, it is easy to understand the tendency of her worshippers
to quickly resort to violence when their deity was threatened.
Thus when Demetrius realized the danger to his money-making business connected to the deity (v. 24b),
it didn’t take a genius to figure out how to arouse the indignation of his fellow craftsmen, who then could easily
get the city in an uproar over a perceived threat to this religious cult, a matter of great civic pride in the city. The
temple and the religious cult were points of enromous civic pride for the Ephesians. Luke indicates in vv. 25-27
how Demetrius went about creating the anger among his fellow silversmiths.
25 οὓς συναθροίσας καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐργάτας εἶπεν· ἄνδρες, ἐπίστασθε ὅτι ἐκ ταύτης τῆς ἐργασίας ἡ
εὐπορία ἡμῖν ἐστιν 26 καὶ θεωρεῖτε καὶ ἀκούετε ὅτι οὐ μόνον Ἐφέσου ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν πάσης τῆς Ἀσίας ὁ Παῦλος οὗτος
πείσας μετέστησεν ἱκανὸν ὄχλον λέγων ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν θεοὶ οἱ διὰ χειρῶν γινόμενοι. 27 οὐ μόνον δὲ τοῦτο κινδυνεύει
ἡμῖν τὸ μέρος εἰς ἀπελεγμὸν ἐλθεῖν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ τῆς μεγάλης θεᾶς Ἀρτέμιδος ἱερὸν εἰς οὐθὲν λογισθῆναι, μέλλειν τε
καὶ καθαιρεῖσθαι τῆς μεγαλειότητος αὐτῆς ἣν ὅλη ἡ Ἀσία καὶ ἡ οἰκουμένη σέβεται.
25 These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our
wealth from this business. 26 You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this
Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are
not gods. 27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple
of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the
world to worship her.”
Luke’s summarizing words from Demetrius effectively capture the essence of his fears, and how to play off those
fears in deception. Two groups of people are gathered together by Demetrius: the τοῖς τεχνίταις, the craftsmen (v.
24; οὓς, whom goes back to its antecedent) and τοὺς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐργάτας, those workers connected to these very
things (v. 25). What we see here are the vendors (τεχνίτης) and everyone else connected to the mass production
of the silver shrines, ναοὺς ἀργυροῦς (v. 24).
In his speech 101 Demetrius first appeals to the pocketbook of these craftsmen: ἄνδρες, ἐπίστασθε ὅτι ἐκ
ταύτης τῆς ἐργασίας ἡ εὐπορία ἡμῖν ἐστιν, Men, you well know that from this trade is prosperity for us. The term used
by Luke here, ἡ εὐπορία, means not just ‘a living,’ but ‘abundant wealth.’ The selling of these miniature copies
of the temple as sacred representations of the place of worship to the goddess brought in substantial money to
these men. 102
Next, Demetrius pays Paul an indirect complement meant as a criticism: καὶ θεωρεῖτε καὶ ἀκούετε ὅτι οὐ
μόνον Ἐφέσου ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν πάσης τῆς Ἀσίας ὁ Παῦλος οὗτος πείσας μετέστησεν ἱκανὸν ὄχλον λέγων ὅτι οὐκ
and enigmatic.” [Hubert M. Martin, Jr., “Artemis (Deity)” In vol. 1, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New
York: Doubleday, 1992), 464.]
100 “As a Greek goddess Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and sister of Apollo, worshipped already in Mycenaean
times. She was a virgin who helped women in childbirth, a huntress armed with a bow, the goddess of death. The establishment of an
Ionian colony at Ephesus, and similar acts of colonization elsewhere in Asia Minor, led to assimilation of the Greek Artemis to deities of
oriental origin. Worship of a goddess (perhaps of fertility) seems to have been practised in Ephesus before the arrival of the Greeks, and
images (which may once have included the great golden image in the temple at Ephesus) have often been interpreted as many-breasted,
suggesting that she was a fertility goddess. An alternative interpretation of the supposed breasts as bull’s testicles would suggest fertility
even more strongly (see D. W. J. Gill and B. W. Winter in The Book of Acts 2:88). The view that Artemis was a fertility goddess is however
effectively criticized in the same volume (319f.) by P. A. Trebilco. The Ephesian goddess was probably related to Cybele and to Ma
(who had her own temple in Ephesus).” [C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International
Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004), 922-23.]
101Luke only provides us with the heart of what Demetrius said, not the full text of the speech. And the speech is arranged rather
deliberately in standard ancient rhetorical structure, as is noted by Pervo:
Four words in the opening line (v. 25) begin with ἐ-, and seven with a smooth vowel. Verse 27 is replete with -ει- and -ηsounds.
Note also the play between “great” (μεγάλης) and “greatness” (μεγαλειότητος) in v. 27. That noun is applied to God
in Luke 9:43.
[Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary on the Book of Acts, ed. Harold W. Attridge, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary
on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009).]
102 19 “ναοί, “shrines,” were probably copies of the temple. Though such copies have not been found in Ephesus, they have been
discovered elsewhere;
Page 407
20 they served as souvenirs or amulets. 21 ” [Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of
the Apostles, ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Christopher R. Matthews, trans. James Limburg, A. Thomas Kraabel and Donald H. Juel, Hermeneia—a
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 165.]