St. Paul's Prison Epistles, Syllabus

St. Paul’s “Prison Epistles” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon) Valentin de Boulogne. Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (oil on canvas), c. 1620. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. with Dr. Bill Creasy 1 Copyright © 2021 by Logos Educational Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this course—audio, video, photography, maps, timelines or other media—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval devices without permission in writing or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder. Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. 2 St. Paul’s “Prison Epistles” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon) Author: St. Paul the Apostle Recipient: The churches in Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and a personal letter to Philemon, a resident of Colossae Date Written: c. A.D. 60-62 Introduction After his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, St. Paul worked tirelessly as the Apostle to the Gentiles, traveling for over a decade (A.D. 46-60) more than 10,000 miles by sea and land on three missionary journeys throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean world. By the end of St. Paul’s third missionary journey to Ephesus, Luke could write that “all the inhabitants of the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, Jews and Greeks alike” (Acts 19: 10). Indeed, during that time, St. Paul evangelized all of Asia Minor, a good portion of southern Europe and he wrote thirteen of the twenty- seven books of the New Testament. No other Apostle came close to accomplishing what St. Paul did. 3 But, when St. Paul left Ephesus at the end of his third missionary journey in A.D. 57, he did so under a cloud. After more than two years of teaching and preaching, first in the local synagogue and then in the public lecture hall of Tyrannus, some Jewish exorcists [ejxorkisthvß, the “seven sons of Sceva”], triggered a book burning by many of St. Paul’s converts, sending up in smoke scrolls and books valued at over 50,000 pieces of silver, or over $10,000,000 in today’s terms. Although the great library of Celsus would not be built in Ephesus until A.D. 132, the Ephesus of St. Paul’s day was a sophisticated, cultured city that held education and learning in high esteem. The books burnt were not books on “sorcery,” but on perivergoß, a derisive term for “trivial matters”; most likely, books on pre-Christian philosophy and classical and scientific learning.1 Given St. Paul’s considerable education in Judaism, as well as rhetoric and classical learning, he must have been horrified, for he immediately resolved to leave Ephesus and travel to Macedonia and Achaia, and then go on to Jerusalem, sailing by way of Corinth. But before St. Paul could leave, a riot broke out in Ephesus, a riot triggered by Demetrius, a member of the guild of silversmiths who made silver images of Artemis, the patron goddess of Ephesus (or Diana, as she was known by the Romans). Ephesus was among the largest cities in the Roman Empire, with a population exceeding 200,000, and it was home of the Aegean Sea’s largest deep-water port, a commercial hub for the Empire’s maritime trade routes. Ephesus also boasted the Temple of Diana, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and silver images of the goddess were prime souvenirs for the thousands of travelers who passed through Ephesus each year. Apparently, St. Paul’s teaching and preaching had not only been misunderstood by the ignorant, but it had also made a significant dent in the sale of silver images, and the craftsmen and merchants of Ephesus were not at all happy about it! So, Demetrius rallied his fellow craftsmen and merchants, and he led a mob into the theater where they chanted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 9: 34), as Demetrius whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Thanks to his friends, St. Paul escaped the mob, but he immediately left Ephesus for good. When St. Paul finally arrived in Jerusalem in late A.D. 57 he made arrangements to offer sacrifices at the Temple, sacrifices needed to complete the Nazarite vow he had made at Corinth several years earlier (Acts 18: 18). Ending a Nazarite vow involved cutting off the hair that grew during the period of the vow, as well as offering “one unblemished yearling lamb for a burnt offering, one unblemished yearling ewe lamb for a purification offering, one unblemished ram as a communion offering, and a basket of unleavened cakes of bran flour mixed with oil and of unleavened wafers spread with oil, along with 1 A similar event occurred in A.D. 415 with the brutal murder of Hypatia, the brilliant mathematician and philosopher accused by St. Cyril of Alexandria of practicing “perivergoß” and of beguiling young minds. After delivering a lecture at the University of Alexandria, Hypatia was attacked by a Christian mob, stripped naked, hacked to death and burned. St. Cyril of Alexandria then sacked and burned the University. Hypatia was head of the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Among her many discoveries, Hypatia anticipated the elliptical orbits of the planets, confirmed 1,200 later by Johannes Kepler. 4 their grain offerings and libations” (Numbers 6: 14-15). Since sacrifices could only be made at the Temple in Jerusalem, this was St. Paul’s opportunity to do so. But, of course, trouble dogged St. Paul’s every footstep. Arriving at the Temple, word had spread that St. Paul had brought with him Gentiles, who had ventured beyond the court of the Gentiles into the Temple complex proper, thus defiling it. A riot quickly ensued. The mob seized Paul, dragged him outside of the Temple and began to beat the living daylights out of him. Roman soldiers stationed at the north-west corner of the Temple complex in the Antonia fortress reacted properly and quickly, rescuing Paul from the mob, arresting him and taking him back to the fortress. Mistaking St. Paul for an Egyptian terrorist (Acts 21: 38), the commander of the guard prepared to flog the truth out of him. Stretched out naked on a rack, St. Paul calmly asked: “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen and has not been tried?” (Acts 22: 25). Once establishing his roman citizenship, St. Paul’s status immediately changed from that of a foreign criminal under arrest to that of an accused Roman citizen, one who had all the rights of a Roman citizen, including the right to face his accusers in a fair trial. The Jews, however, would have none of it. After a raucous hearing before the Sanhedrin, St. Paul learns that the Jewish leadership had recruited men to assassinate him and he is transferred to Caesarea Maritima under protective custody, accompanied by 200 armed soldiers, 200 auxiliaries and seventy-five mounted horsemen. St. Paul spends the next two years at Caesarea, not under arrest, but under protective custody at the governor’s palace, awaiting resolution of his case. Importantly, no criminal charges had been made against Paul under Roman law; he only faced accusations by the Jewish leaders, members of the Sanhedrin. Indeed, St. Paul spends two years—not in prison—but in custody at the administrative complex and home of Governor Antonius Felix, the Roman Procurator (A.D. 52-58). During St. Paul’s two years at Caesarea, he frequently met and conversed with the governor and with the governor’s Jewish wife, Drusilla (Acts 24: 24-25). In A.D. 58, Felix’s term as governor ended, and Porcius Festus replaced him (c. A.D. 59-62). Felix had failed to resolve St. Paul’s legal issues before leaving office, perhaps to avoid conflict with the Jewish authorities who were, after all, an important part of his constituency (Acts 24: 27), or perhaps because he simply enjoyed speaking and socializing with St. Paul (and we might add that Paul seemed in no hurry to leave, either); in any case, governor Festus inherited St. Paul’s case. Within three days of arriving at Caesarea, Festus journeyed up to Jerusalem to meet with the Jewish leadership, who immediately wanted Paul handed over to them. One week later, after arriving back in Caesarea, Festus, acting properly, asked Paul if he would be willing to go up to Jerusalem to be heard before the Jewish Sanhedrin. St. Paul was now back at square #1. Refusing to expose himself to the Sanhedrin again (after all, they had plotted to assassinate him), St. Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen to appeal his case directly to Rome. Festus, after consulting with his legal advisors, happily granted St. Paul’s request, and in doing so, he cleared one more troublesome item off his desk. 5 So, to Rome St. Paul went. He boarded ship at Caesarea, accompanied by a Roman centurion name Julius of the Cohort Augusta, along with some prisoners Julius was escorting to Rome. Importantly, St. Paul was not among the prisoners. Making their first stop at Sidon, a day’s sail north, “Julius was kind enough to allow Paul to visit his friends who took care of him” (Acts 27: 3).

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