16. The Speech to the Presbyters of Ephesus

Acts of the Apostles

 

In the Easter period of the year 58, Paul makes a long journey from Macedonia to Jerusalem; he left immediately after of the Feast of Unleavened Bread celebrated in the city of Philippi and wants to arrive in Jerusalem before the Feast of Pentecost, 50 days later. In this period, he moves a little bit on foot, a little bit by the sea, and returns to make a stop in some cities where he had given life to a Christian community. The most important stage that is remembered in chapter 20 of the Acts of the Apostles is that of Miletus because the city of Miletus is located a few kilometers South of Ephesus and Ephesus was the great capital of Asia where Paul had worked intensely for three long years, very fruitful years that had produced many Christian believers since the rich Ephesian interior was in continuous contact with the main city, many people that Paul had met in Ephesus returning to their home towns, from the interior, had brought Christian preaching and, therefore, without directly knowing those cities Paul has evangelized for example Colossae, Laodicea Hierapolis, cities that are born by preaching of Paul through Paul’s disciples.

The apostle met many people in the city of Ephesus during those three years; he gave life to many Christian communities that met in homes. The Latin term that qualified this reality is ‘domus ecclesiae’, house of the church, where ‘church’ indicates people, it is the community of people in a given house and therefore the group can be as numerous as a house can hold. We cannot think of a number greater than one hundred; these were family type places, with groups of 50 to 100 people who used to meet regularly the first day of the week, which we called Sunday, but the meeting was on Saturday afternoon.

As Sunday was not a holiday, it was necessary to choose occasions when people were free of work commitments and therefore according to Jewish practice, in which the day begins at sunset, Sunday begins on Saturday afternoon, so Saturday evening is the oldest time in the Christian tradition to celebrate the Eucharist. On the night between Saturday and Sunday the meetings took place in the ‘domus ecclesiae’, in these houses that housed the communities.

Each of these domus needed a leader, a leader, an animator, a person in charge of keeping people together, of leading the prayer. Maintaining contact with the apostolic tradition was the task of some people. It is the task of the presbyters, the older ones, that is, those responsible. The best term to translate ‘presbyter’ is ‘head of the family.’ These domestic communities were authentic ecclesial families within which were those responsible, the heads of families, called presbyters. What we have called ‘priests.’ “Priest’ is the shortened term for presbyter.

In Ephesus, during those three years of preaching, Paul instituted numerous presbyters, that is, heads of families responsible for all those domus in which liturgical and formative meetings took place. When Paul passes near Ephesus in the spring of 58, he wants to greet the Church of Ephesus, but fears they will waste too much of his time as he wants to arrive in Jerusalem for Pentecost and the journey is still very long so he stops in Miletus and sends for the presbyters, the people in charge, not all Christians, but only the leaders of the communities and to them he gives a speech that Luke narrates almost like a spiritual testament of the apostle.

An occasion in which Paul presents his own missionary style and proposes to the priests responsible for the domestic communities to follow a similar pastoral method: “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me because of the plots of the Jews, and I did not at all shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus. But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know.” But I have an intuition—the Apostle says—problems, tribulations, chains, prison await me. “Compelled by the Spirit,” is a splendid image.

Paul is a prisoner, a free prisoner of Christ, has let himself be overcome by the Spirit of Christ and lets himself be carried away. He is walking to Jerusalem as Jesus has walked towards the holy city. The evangelist Luke gave in his gospel particular attention to Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and so now, in Acts, the second volume of his work, Luke emphasizes that Paul’s journey to Jerusalem is a journey into suffering.

Like Jesus, even Paul going to Jerusalem will be arrested and will not suffer a sentence of death but long periods of imprisonment, humiliation and hunger, he will be blocked in his work. During this journey Paul repeats several times: ‘prison awaits me, suffering awaits me, difficulties await me,’ and those who listen to him inevitably—as we would do it too—would say: ‘Don’t go… you have a lot of places to choose from… why do you have to go to Jerusalem if you know that in Jerusalem you will be arrested? Avoid going there and go where you are not in danger.’

For Paul to going to Jerusalem means to fulfill God’s plan, means to imitate Jesus’ attitude precisely because he is aware that the authorities in Jerusalem will want to arrest him and he will give himself up, like Jesus had given up, knowing that his generous action of total self-giving brings pastoral effectiveness. He continues to speak to the presbyters of Ephesus: “But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.”

This particular word is very important: ‘entire’ plan of God. Paul announced the whole will of God, not a part of it. Sometimes preachers say what the audience wants to hear them say, that part is easily announced which is nice. Paul repeats to the presbyters his commitment to announce the whole will of God, for which reason he declares himself not responsible for their ruin, because the things he has said are all and clear; and he invites the presbyters of Ephesus to do like him.

“Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood.” The term that is translated with ‘overseers’ in Greek is ‘ἐπισκόπους’ = ‘episcopus’; it cannot be translated as ‘bishop’, because they are the presbyters of Ephesus, they are the heads of families, the priests who have the task of being guardians, pastors of the Church. And Paul specifies that they are guardians and pastors of that Church which is not theirs but God’s and God bought it with the precious blood of his Son. ‘Precious’ means priceless. The blood of Christ is of great value that has been acquired by the people who belong to God. It is administered by Paul and the others, but it belongs to God, so presbyters must watch first over themselves and then over the flock entrusted to them.

“I know—continues the apostle— that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them. So be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day, I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears.” The dangers exist, there are dangers that will be within you.

Paul is clairvoyant, he realizes the situation and announces the emergence of heresies, of incorrect doctrines right within that community and effectively the environment of Ephesus will produce many of these erroneous doctrines. When Luke writes they are already swarming these various incorrect ideologies, at the end of the century when in Ephesus will be active the apostle John will exploit all Gnostic-type movements that have Christian elements, but will then develop in a completely different way. It is necessary to be watchful so that people do not believe that they attract disciples to themselves. This is the root of the problem, when the priest, the pastor of the church ties people to himself, and to have followers adapts to their tastes; and not to lose track of the desires of those around him acts according to fashion, let things run and try to achieve success… this is a self-centered attitude, where the pastor draws people to himself; this is at the origin of erroneous preaching. For this reason they must be vigilant, says the apostle.

And he concludes: “And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated. I have never wanted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You know well that these very hands have served my needs and my companions. In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Paul presents it as a personal glory of having worked with his own hands. He was a working priest who was concretely committed to work in order to support himself and was not a burden for the communities and did so precisely so as not to give the impression of winning by preaching the Gospel.

Paul did not understand his mission as a profitable profession and therefore showed people that his commitment with evangelization was free, it was directed to the kingdom of God and not to private interests and emphasizes this with a ‘λόγιον αγραφον’ = ‘lógion ágrafon’, i.e. a saying that is not written in the gospels. Paul reports a phrase of Jesus that is not preserved in the Gospels. The evangelist Luke had this expression, received it from tradition, and did not include it in the gospel but puts it in Paul’s mouth at the end of this splendid pastoral discourse: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ It is a beautitude: there is more joy in generosity of the one who gives than on the one who receives and therefore the pastoral commitment in the gift of self, in the gift of his own commitment, in the gift of evangelical preaching, is a source of blessing, of happiness. “When he had finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all.”

They are not in a church, they are in the harbor, somewhere in the port of Miletus, where he gathered some Ephesian presbyters, 10, 20 or 30 people, the heads of these domestic communities. They knelt down and prayed, “They were all weeping loudly as they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him, for they were deeply distressed that he had said that they would never see his face again.” It is the last time they see each other, it is inevitable. If a loved one gives such an announcement the one who is fond of that person starts crying and hugs him; and they accompany him to the boat and greet him with love and a little sadness.

It is a delicious scene of friends, of people who love each other, united by a deep affection. Paul says goodbye to this community and entrusts as a spiritual testament the pastoral work of evangelical preaching and resumes the journey. Luke, still in chapter 21, offers detailed information about the stages of the journey. From Miletus the ship goes around the southern coast of Anatolia (today’s Turkey), makes a stop in Cos, then they arrive in Rhodes, then in Patara, they stop in Mira and at the end they touch Cyprus and land in the south of Syria, in Tyre, a famous city in Lebanon, in Phoenicia. In Tyre the community meets; there is a Christian group also in that city in Lebanon and on the beach the meeting of the believers with Paul takes place.

They kneel on the beach and pray. “We bade farewell to one another. Then we boarded the ship, and they returned home.” Once the navigation is over, they arrive at Ptolemais; it is the last stop by sea. From Ptolemais they proceed on foot and descend along the Mediterranean coast. They arrive at Caesarea Maritime where the guests are in Philip’s house, the evangelist. He is the person, one of the seven, that we met together with Stephen when the mission of the Hellenists began.

This Philip has evangelized the Samaria, he baptized that great Ethiopian minister of Queen Candases of Ethiopia. Then, this Philip, returned along the coast evangelizing other cities and stopped to live in the Caesarea maritime. We were in the 30’s and now we are at the end of the 50’s. It has been 20 years and Paul in Caesarea meets Philip who is the head of the Christian community. He has four unmarried daughters; they are catechists, they are animators, they announce the word together with the father, collaborate in the proclamation of the gospel. Let us note that the story continues in the first person plural; Luke is present and these brief hints of travel are part of his diary, that diary in which he marked all the stages of the itinerary he traveled with Paul. From Caesarea to Jerusalem the stretch is short, a few days’ walk takes Paul to Jerusalem.

He arrives in the holy city, is welcomed by the Christian community, led by James, the Lord’s brother, one of the Twelve, is the one that tradition considers the bishop of Jerusalem, the leader of the Judaizing group, that is, made above all by Jews who care to preserve the traditions of Jewish law; and Paul, welcomed by them, prepares to become a victim of Jewish opposition. When the authorities know that Paul has arrived the city will get its hands on him.

He feels it, he knows it and he went there voluntarily, he does it on purpose as Jesus gave himself into the hands of his enemies to fulfill his plan of salvation and to Jerusalem, at Pentecost in the year 58 begins what will be the long period of Paul’s imprisonment.