Corinth & Ephesus

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Paul’s three missionary “journeys” form a standard feature in New Testament maps and histories. The impression that emerges from the account in Acts of the Apostles 1–21 in the New Testament is that Paul three times set out from Antioch in Syria on a succession of missionary “journeys,” during which he preached and founded churches in a dozen or more cities. On his first journey, he established churches on the island of Cyprus and in Anatolia (modern Turkey); on his second journey, in Macedonia and southern Greece; and on his third journey, in Ephesus.¹

However, a closer examination of these chapters from the Book of Acts reveals a different picture.

Although it is rarely noticed, once Paul reached Corinth on his second journey, his strategy 021changed. For a time he stopped “journeying”; he spent approximately 18 months at Corinth (Acts 18:11) before moving on. His third “journey” was not so much a trip as an extended residence in Ephesus, where he spent at least two and one-half years (Acts 19:1–20).

Paul’s three “journeys” took a total of about seven years; they began about 48 A.D. and came to an end when Paul was arrested and imprisoned about 55 A.D. The stops in Corinth and Ephesus, therefore, account for over half the time Paul was supposedly “on the road.”

Before reaching Corinth Paul had established almost a dozen churches across Cyprus, Anatolia and Macedonia. On his first missionary journey he spent time at Salamis and Paphos on Cyprus, before going on to Anatolia where he visited Perge in Pamphylia; Antioch of Pisidia; and Iconium, Derbe and Listra, all in eastern Galatia (Acts 13). After a return trip to Antioch (Acts 15), he set out on his second journey, this time going all the way to Macedonia (northern modern Greece). There he established churches at Philippi, Thessalonika and Berea before heading south. He is reported to have preached in Athens, although he apparently did not establish a church there (Acts 15:36–17:34). If we allow for actual traveling time on the road,^a we must conclude that Paul spent an average of only a month or two in each city!

Why did Paul spend so little time in each of these cities? In his letters, Paul expresses two dominant themes that account for the brevity of his visits in these cities. First, Paul was confident that the end of this age was coming quickly, so there was but little time left to spread the gospel before it would be too late (1 Corinthians 7:29–31; 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17).

Second, Paul had become convinced that Jesus was the “Messiah” / savior of Gentiles as well as Jews and that the gospel (literally “good news”) needed to be proclaimed throughout the Gentile world (see Galatians & Romans throughout). Indeed, at one point he even conceived a definite plan to travel westward to Rome (Romans 1:13) and still farther to Spain (Romans 15:22–24), which was literally and symbolically the westernmost limit of the known world.

On his first two journeys Paul and his traveling companions—first Barnabas and then Silas—set fairly rigorous itineraries. They headed for the capital cities of districts or provinces, preached in the local synagogues, gathered those who responded—both Jews and Gentiles—into new 022church units, and then moved on. True, the opposition they engendered sometimes forced them to leave town sooner than they planned, but they would not have stayed more than a few months in any of these cities anyway. Their purpose was to remain only long enough to help a new church get established, and then leave to the new Christians in that church the task of spreading the new gospel to the smaller towns in their district.

When Paul reached Corinth, however, he broke this pattern dramatically. Despite the sense of urgency he felt about the imminence of a judgment day, he decided to “take up residence” at Corinth (and later, as we shall see at Ephesus). Why?

Is it simply that these were large, tradition-rich cities? Paul had passed through other cities impressive in size, such as Thessalonika, or rich in tradition, such as Troas. Athens had both impressive buildings and a rich classical heritage. Yet Paul did little more than pause there (Acts 17:14; 1 Thessalonians 3:1).

In fact, Corinth and Ephesus had special features that help explain Paul’s decision to abandon his frenetic travel schedule and establish residency in these cities.

Corinth’s strategic location was perhaps of prime importance. It was a hub city for travel between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. The narrow isthmus separating the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf had been spanned as early as the sixth century B.C. by a stone-paved roadway (the diolkos), making it relatively easy to pull most ships across the low, three-mile wide landstrip without even unloading them.^b

The diolkos saved some 200 miles of extra sea travel, which a journey around the Peloponnese would have added; moreover, the sheltered waters of the Saronic and Corinthian Gulfs were far safer for sea-going ships than the treacherous winds around Cape Malea at the Peloponnese’s south-eastern tip. Cape Malea’s reputation among sailors was as old as Homer (Odyssey, Book IX, lines 80ff.), who immortalized it as the point where Odysseus and his shipmates were driven off course for ten days when they were returning home from Troy.

The ship route through the more sheltered waters east and west of Corinth took on added importance because there were no convenient road systems across central or southern Greece; rugged mountain ranges there run north-south, thereby preventing easy passage.^c

Corinth, therefore, was a natural funnel for traffic, receiving a steady and lively flow of travelers to and from all the Roman provinces along the northern shore of the Mediterranean.

The Romans had recognized Corinth’s strategic location early. In 146 B.C. they had considered it necessary to destroy the city completely and disperse its survivors when initially those 023survivors attempted to intervene in eastern Mediterranean affairs. A century later, when Rome had succeeded in extending its hegemony to the east, Caesar rebuilt Corinth as a Roman city. It was soon made the capital of the Roman province of Achaia, embracing the whole of the Peloponnese and much of central Greece.

Corinth’s strategic location and the ease with which side trips could be made from this hub must have impressed Paul early in his stay. Before arriving at Corinth, Paul had been forced to leave hurriedly both Thessalonika and the next city on 024his itinerary, Berea. Timothy who had stayed behind at Berea, finally caught up with Paul in Athens. Paul was so concerned about the church he had barely had time to found in Thessalonika that he sent Timothy back to Thessalonika to check on things while Paul himself went on to Corinth. Shortly after Paul arrived at Corinth, Timothy returned from Thessalonika, bringing reassuring news (1 Thessalonians 3:1–7). Paul must have been impressed with the ease with which Timothy could shuttle back and forth in a relatively short time from Berea south to Athens, from Athens back north to Thessalonika, and from there back south to Corinth. Travel conditions between Roman Achaia and Macedonia (probably using the coastal ship lanes) must have been quite efficient.

Incidentally, when Timothy arrived at Corinth and gave Paul the good news about the situation in Thessalonika, Paul was moved to write the letter known as 1 Thessalonians. This is the earliest of the Pauline letters—which means that it is also the earliest Christian document of any kind that has been preserved—before the earliest gospel. Insofar as it has survived, Christian literature begins with this letter written by Paul from Corinth to the Thessalonians. In it, Paul expresses his joy and relief at the news Timothy had brought; Paul then writes to give additional spiritual strength and guidance to the fledgling church of Thessalonika.

Once written, the letter to the Thessalonians had to be delivered, and this meant putting poor Timothy right back on ship to Thessalonika. But in this way Paul was able to keep actively in touch with the Christians there without interrupting his activities at Corinth.

Meanwhile, at Corinth Paul continued to spread the gospel to many new areas by preaching to sailors, to traveling merchants and to others who passed through the city from all over the Roman Empire. In Corinth Paul literally could spread his gospel more efficiently by staying in one place. Initially, he probably intended to move on westward from Corinth as soon as a church was firmly established there; but after he arrived at Corinth he seems to have decided that he could send the gospel on through others. He later claimed that he preached the gospel “from Jerusalem as far round as Illyricum (western Yugoslavia) (Romans 15:19), perhaps reflecting that through his preaching at Corinth he already had extended it this far.

In addition to being a hub for the constant stream of travelers who passed through Corinth, the city was also a destination for two types of pilgrims. The first included people suffering from all kinds of maladies who came to Corinth’s asklepieion, a healing shrine dedicated to the deified Greek physician Asklepius. Originally worshipped at Epidaurus, Asklepius by the fourth century B.C. had several other healing shrines; the one at Corinth remained popular well into the Roman Age. Suppliants would stay in Corinth, often with family members, for a period of weeks or months, in the hope of receiving a cure. Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies have uncovered Corinth’s asklepieion, including dining rooms, bathing facilities and the foundation of the special sleeping dormitory (abaton) where cures were supposed to be received through dreams. The excavations also found numerous terra cotta votive offerings to the god in the form of human body parts—arms, legs, breasts, genitals, etc.—for which cures were sought or received.

The second type of pilgrim came to Corinth to attend the Isthmian Games, which were held every two years, including the summer of 51 A.D., while Paul was there. The games were held about 10 miles from Corinth, at a shrine of Poseidon, the sea god.² Like the better known games at Olympia, the Isthmian Games were “panhellenic,” attracting athletes and spectators from Greek settlements throughout the Mediterranean.

But the temples, theater and stadium at Isthmia also drew crowds on other occasions, between the biennial Isthmian games, when these facilities were used for lesser sports events and rituals.

The Isthmian Games and the health spa at Corinth may also have provided Paul, who was a tentmaker by trade, with a special opportunity to support himself. We know from Paul’s own statements that he was anxious to be independent of support from the churches he founded, lest he be mistaken for one of the professional itinerant philosophers of his day (1 Thessalonians 4:15). We also learn from Acts that when Paul came to Corinth he sought out a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, “and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them, and they worked, for by trade they were tentmakers” (Acts 18:2–3).

Most of the people who flocked to the Corinthian asklepieion and the Isthmian Games stayed in tent encampments. Only aristocrats and dignitaries stayed in the limited hotel accommodations. Paul thus found a ready means of supporting himself among the very people who provided promising audiences for his preaching.

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Paradoxically, Corinth offered another attractive feature for Paul—its long-standing reputation for immorality and licentiousness. The Greeks—who had a name for everything—coined the term corinthiazesthai to mean immorality; literally, the word means “to live a Corinthian life.” To call a girl a “Corinthian lass” was to cast aspersions on her virtue.

Corinth’s reputation was as notorious in Paul’s day as it had been in the Classical Age five centuries before. The account by the Roman geographer Strabo that a thousand cult prostitutes (heirodules) once served the temple to Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth, overlooking the city, may have been exaggerated. But the steady stream of sailors, traveling salesmen and the ancient equivalent of soccer fans doubtless kept a goodly number of the cult prostitutes’ secular counterparts busy in the rooms over the 33 wineshops that archaeologists have uncovered, lining the south side of the Roman forum.³

This is the reality that lay behind Paul’s reference, in his second letter to the Corinthians, to the “impurity, immorality, and licentiousness” that characterized the behavior of some church members before their conversions (2 Corinthians 12:21). Paul knew what he was talking about when he referred to the “immoral,” the “idolators,” the “adulterers,” the “homosexuals,” the “thieves,” the “greedy,” the “drunkards,” the “revilers” and the “robbers” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10) of Corinth. “Such,” he writes to the members of the church at Corinth; “were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Corinth also had strong associations with “pagan” religions. We have already referred to the worship of Asklepius, Poseidon and Aphrodite. The city also had a venerable connection with Apollo. A Roman-period shrine to Apollo was located prominently next to the Lechaeum Road, the main street leading from the forum to Corinth’s western port. Altars and temples to other traditional Greek gods—Athena, Hera, Hermes—lined the edges of the forum. One temple was even dedicated to “all the gods.”

In addition, new forms of worship had been introduced to Corinth during the century before Paul’s arrival, brought by the enclaves of foreigners living at Corinth. On the road leading up to Acrocorinth, for example, was a shrine to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis. A shrine to Octavia, the deified sister of Emperor Augustus, was located at the west end of the forum. Some of the newer “mystery” religions also flourished in Corinth; these offered their special kinds of personal salvation and communion with savior gods.

For Paul, all this represented a special challenge—and a special opportunity. Paul had been preaching throughout his missionary journeys that Gentile converts to Christianity did not need to undertake circumcision and all the obligations of Jewish law that this ritual symbolized. Now, in Corinth of all places, if Paul could establish church of Gentile converts who were morally upright without relying on the constraints of Torah (Jewish law), then the Christian gospel could take root anywhere—even in the most hostile soil the Gentile world could offer.

Paul’s letters, later sent back to the Corinthian Christians, reflect his special zeal that their behavior be morally elevated. The church at Corinth was a “showcase” congregation for Paul; with it he hoped at last to convince the most skeptical among the Jewish Christian leaders in Jerusalem that Torah was not necessary for salvation.

Although Paul left Corinth after a year and a half, he may well have planned to return after only a brief trip back east. He seems to have left Corinth primarily to make a return visit to the church at Antioch (Acts 18:22)—it had been several years since he had started out from his sponsor-church there. He may have wanted to gain the Antioch church leaders” approval (and perhaps the approval of the Jerusalem church leaders) for the decision he had made on his own to extend his missionary activity across the Aegean from Asia to Macedonia and Greece, and he would want to share with them first-hand the successes he had achieved for the gospel on purely Gentile soil.

Paul set sail from Cenchreae, Corinth’s port on the east coast of the isthmus, on a ship taking the most direct route across the Aegean Sea to Ephesus. From there he would continue by ship eastward along the coast of Asia Minor (Acts 18:18). Priscilla and Aquila, with whom he had lived in Corinth, accompanied Paul as far as Ephesus. Perhaps they originally had planned to go on with Paul to Antioch. If so, they changed their minds when they arrived at Ephesus.

Paul, who had not been to Ephesus before, was sufficiently impressed that he promised the Jews in the synagogue that he would return to them after his visit to Antioch “if God wills” (Acts 18:21).

Paul did more than keep his promise to return to Ephesus. When he did return, he stayed—for 026two and one-half years (Acts 19:8–10). Why so long? Not simply to establish a church there. Other Christians he trusted, such as Aquila and Priscilla, could have been counted on to do that. And it would not have taken that long anyway.

Paul found himself drawn to Ephesus because it had the same “attractions” that had detained him in Corinth—but to an even greater extent.

The modern visitor to Ephesus is immediately struck by the extent and opulence of the archaeological remains.^d And only the center of the city has been exposed, although Austrian excavators have been working at the site since 1895. Ephesus was one of the three or four largest cities in the Roman world. Population estimates for Ephesus in Paul’s time range up to a quarter 027of a million people. Moreover, the city’s wealth was reflected everywhere, from its marble-paved main street to recently excavated mosaic floors in aristocratic homes, that were opened to visitors only a year ago.⁴

Like Corinth, Ephesus was strategically located, and this surely accounts at least in part for its enormous size and wealth in Paul’s day. As the Roman Empire stretched eastward across the Mediterranean, Ephesus’s large and sheltered harbor became a major communication hub. Sea traffic from the Aegean Sea to the west, from the Bosporus and Dardanelles to the north and from Palestine to the east, stopped at Ephesus. Ephesus also served as a convenient collection point on the coast for agricultural products brought down the Maeander River Valley from the interior of Asia Minor. It’s not surprising that Ephesus was designated the capital of the rich Roman province of Asia.

Ephesus also boasted one of the most popular shrines in antiquity—to the Ephesian nature/fertility/mother goddess Artemis, who was worshipped by the Romans as Diana. From all over the Mediterranean, pilgrims flocked to the great Artemisium on the shore of the Kaystros River, adjacent to Ephesus. This great temple was four times the size of the Athens Parthenon and was considered one of the “seven wonders of the world.”⁵

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Two life-sized marble statues of the goddess have been recovered; they undoubtedly are replicas of the huge statue that stood in the Artemisium. The many protusions on the chest of this curious-looking goddess have been variously interpreted as breasts, eggs and even dates. They are probably symbolic of fertility. Pilgrims to the shrine of Artemis in Ephesus sought the goddess’s aid in becoming pregnant and her protection of mothers and children, particularly during childbirth.

The shrine to Artemis would have been one of the special challenges that attracted Paul to Ephesus. Acts records that the most hostile opposition to Paul’s preaching came from adherents to this cult and from local entrepreneurs whose livelihood depended upon it. Near the end of Paul’s stay at Ephesus, a local silversmith named Demetrius, who made votive shrines of the Ephesian Artemis for the pilgrim trade, organized a near-riot against Paul and his associates, filling the 24,500-seat theater of Ephesus with devotees of the goddess chanting repeatedly “Great is Artemis of Ephesus!” (Acts 19:23–41).

Local magicians and exorcists also presented a challenge for Paul. Magic practitioners and their texts had proliferated during the Roman Age, particularly out of Egypt and even from some esoteric circles within Judaism.^e In 13 B.C. the Emperor Augustus unsuccessfully attempted to suppress the use of magical books. The practice of the magical arts was so closely associated with Ephesus that books of magic recipes and incantations were often referred to as “Ephesian books.” According to Acts, Paul was so successful in converting Ephesians from a belief in magic that many of them threw their magic books onto public bonfire (Acts 19:13–19).

Paul was a pugnacious warrior, and we can be sure that he was attracted rather than deterred by the presence at Ephesus of the Artemis devotees and magicians. They gave him greater opportunities to do battle for the Christian gospel. As he wrote to the Corinthians, explaining to them why he was staying so long in Ephesus, “I will stay at Ephesus until Pentacost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9).

Ephesus also had a strong tradition of scholarship and intellectual inquiry. This is most dramatically suggested by the recently re-erected facade of the magnificent three-story Library of Celsus, an important scholarly archive and meeting place for intellectuals in Ephesus. Although this library was not built until 110 A.D., a half-century after Paul’s time, the tradition of scholarly inquiry and activity in the region of Ionia surrounding Ephesus went back to pre-Classical times. The founders of both philosophy and mathematics came from Ionia in the sixth century B.C. Such giants as Thales, Anaximander and Anximenes all came from Miletus, only a few miles south of Ephesus. Herodotus, the first historian, was born a few miles farther south, at Halicarnassos (present-day Bodrum), as was Hippodamnus, who is credited with perfecting the Greek concept of city-planning. Hippocrates, the first physician, established his famous medical center on the nearby island of Kos. At Ephesus Paul could work in an atmosphere of genuine inquiry. There he could find learned scholars who were proud of a centuries-old tradition of open-minded exploration of new ideas. To Paul, this must have been a refreshing change on the one hand, from the intellectual snobbery of the Athenian Greeks (Acts 17:18, 32) and on the other hand, from what Paul perceived as 029close-mindedness of the rabbis.

Moreover, the intellectual climate of Ephesus reflected its geographical location on the threshold between East and West. Moreso than Corinth, which had been on thoroughly Greco-Roman soil, Ephesus provided a meeting place for ideas from both eastern and western cultural traditions. For Paul, who had labored hard to dissolve the barriers between east and west in the Christian fellowship and to unite Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, Ephesus provided a comfortably eclectic atmosphere and a symbolic middle ground from which to preach both toward Rome and toward Jerusalem.

It has also been suggested that Paul was attracted to Ephesus because the Apostle John and Jesus’ mother Mary lived there.⁶ This view is based on an early tradition—though how early we can’t be sure—that the apostle John eventually went to Ephesus to live. And in the Gospel of John, we are told that Jesus placed his mother Mary in the apostle John’s care (John 19:26–27); on this basis she too would have ended her days at Ephesus. In the fourth century A.D., a church was built at Ephesus dedicated to the Virgin Mary 030to commemorate this tradition.^f

Since the 19th century, modern pilgrims have been shown a shrine on a hilltop southeast of Ephesus that is supposed to mark the location of Mary’s last home on earth. Excavations in 1891 revealed remains of a first-century Roman house beneath the chapel of a Byzantine monastery. The identification of the site as Mary’s home, however, is based primarily on testimony from dreams of an 18th century mystic, a German nun named Katarina Emmerich.

In light of all the attractions of Ephesus, it is not difficult to understand why Paul postponed whatever plans he may have had to return to Corinth or to travel even farther west. At Ephesus Paul unpacked his traveling rucksack for the second time. The features that had led him to remain so long in Corinth were even more insistent at Ephesus. The city’s strategic location, the flow of pilgrims, a famous pagan cult, infamous magicians—all provided rich opportunities and worthy challenges for Paul’s preaching. And—as a bonus—at Ephesus Paul also found a stimulating community of scholars to engage in theological debate.

While at Ephesus, Paul continued his letter-writing activity. From here he wrote the letters we have in the New Testament to the Philippians, to Philemon,⁷ and at least three letters to the church at Corinth.⁸ Some scholars think Paul also wrote his Letter to the Galatians from Ephesus.⁹ His letter to the Romans was written either shortly before he left Ephesus or just after he departed on the journey to Macedonia and Corinth.

Paul finally did leave Ephesus,¹⁰ but he left behind him a lasting legacy. His co-workers there turned the church at Ephesus into one of the most important centers of Christian leadership during the following centuries, particularly in its production of Christian writings. Its record is impressive. The Gospel of Luke and its companion volume, the Acts of the Apostles, most probably were issued from Ephesus about 85–90 A.D. Then, between 90 A.D. and 95 A.D., someone at Ephesus gathered together Paul’s own letters to individual churches and published them for general circulation.¹¹ The so-called Letter to the Ephesians probably was written at that time as an “introduction” to Paul’s special understanding of the gospel. Some think Colossians was written from Ephesus at about the same time, if not by Paul himself earlier. The Revelation to John was issued from Ephesus about 95 A.D., and sometime in the next decade or two the Gospel of John was written at Ephesus. The four New Testament gospels were probably first published together and circulated from Ephesus.¹²

We are thus indebted to the church that Paul planted at Ephesus for the initial publication of fully half of the documents (and approximately two-thirds of the bulk) of the literature that was to comprise the New Testament scriptures.

At Ephesus Paul had indeed opened “a wide door for effective work” (1 Corinthians 16:9)!

Paul’s three missionary “journeys” form a standard feature in New Testament maps and histories. The impression that emerges from the account in Acts of the Apostles 1–21 in the New Testament is that Paul three times set out from Antioch in Syria on a succession of missionary “journeys,” during which he preached and founded churches in a dozen or more cities. On his first journey, he established churches on the island of Cyprus and in Anatolia (modern Turkey); on his second journey, in Macedonia and southern Greece; and on his third journey, in Ephesus.1 However, a closer examination of […]