What I am going to do now is show what Paul’s argument looks like if you connect it to Ephesus and the cult of Artemis in the first-century.
Let me give some props to Rick Strelan’s book Paul, Artemis, and the Ephesians; Sandra Glahn, Nobody’s Mother, Gary H. Hoag, Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy, and Marg Mowszko’s blog.
Here’s the problem: connecting Artemis to 1 Timothy 2 goes against what many complementarian scholars argue. For instance, Tom Schreiner (though a prince of exegetes) writes:
There is no clear evidence in Paul’s letters that the Artemis cult played a role. Paul does not mention the cult, nor is there any specific notion in the text that shows the influence of the cult.
And Mike Winger himself spends 90 minutes trying to explain why the Artemis cult does not matter for this passage. In fact, he says that is “demonstrably wrong” to read the Artemis cult into 1 Timothy 2.
That makes no sense for three reasons:
First, if you read Acts 19 with Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, the cult of Artemis was a big deal, and it impacted the events of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, because there was a mob in Ephesus that wanted to lynch Paul because he was destroying the business of people who made idols of the goddess. They alleged that he was “dishonoring the great goddess Artemis” (Acts 19:27). So yeah, the Artemis cult did impact the ministry of Paul in Ephesus. Winger admits that Ephesus was the Vatican or Mecca of Artemis, he gives a good exposition of its significance for Ephesus, but he still doesn’t think it plays a role in understanding 1 Tim 2.
Second, you cannot interpret Paul’s letters in a vacuum nor flatten out the distinctives of the Ephesian context by saying Ephesians was just the same as every other Greco-Roman society. While some things might be true everywhere, nowhere is like everywhere, every place has its own atmosphere and complexities. The religious context of Massachusetts is different from the religious context of Texas.
Third, Michael Immendörfer wrote a whole thesis on the Artemis cult as the background to the letter to the Ephesians (Ephesis and Artemis: The Cult of the Great Goddess of Ephesus as the Epistle’s Context [2017]). He finds massive similarities in language between the letter to the Ephesians and inscriptions and coins about Artemis and notes the relationship of Artemis to mysteries and magic. Immendörfer thinks Ephesians may have even been written for converts from the Artemis cult. If Immendörfer is even partially right, then why not think that Artemis provides the background to 1 Timothy which is addressed to Timothy … in Ephesus?
Let me say too that situating this passage in relation to the Artemis cult is not the attempt to undo what Paul clearly says. Appealing to Artemis is not trump card that one can play to deny what Paul affirms or denies. It is not a “secret Gnosis” about historical background nor a “fabricated history” as Winger alleges. The connection to Artemis does not change the fact that Paul does make a prohibition about a woman teaching a man (however we understand the who, what, and why). A real restriction is made with argumentation to back it up and it was urgent and important at the time to do it. I’m not denying that. Rather, the egalitarian point is that correctly grasping the socio-religious context of Ephesus dominated as it was by the Artemis cult explains the circumstances of the prohibition, it puts the prohibition about a woman teaching into its precise context, it accounts for its departure from the rest of the Pauline letters, and it ensures that we do not apply the prohibition in ways for which it was not intended. So the “where” and “why” for any command or prohibition is important for “how” we apply it today!
Against Winger and friends, I want to defend the relevance of the Artemis cult for understanding 1 Timothy 2.
An opening admission! Against many egalitarians, the Artemis cult was not a hyper-feminist cult, it was not a fertility religion, Artemis was not a divine mother, it was not a cult run by females-only, it had men involved called kyretes. Rick Strelan writes that “The cult of Artemis was fundamentally a cult of the female, for both male and female.” In fact, Winger does an excellent job showing how sloppy and careless egalitarians have been making generalizations and mischaracterizations about Artemis. They’ve made assumptions, recycled the same footnotes without checking them, and not done the hard work of analyzing the primary sources.
That said, women did play a prominent role in the Artemis cult and Artemis was particularly popular with women because she was the goddess of midwifery, childbirth, and virginity. Jan Bremmer observes that in the first and second centuries AD there is “more epigraphical testimonies regarding Artemis’ priestesses than her priests, it seems likely that in the course of time most male aristocrats shifted their interests to the imperial priesthoods, even though Artemis’ priesthood must have long remained prestigious due to its venerable age and wealth.”
To begin with, let me give you a brief bio on the Artemis cult.
The cult of Artemis existed since the fourth century BC to the third century AD through the Persian, Greek, and Roman periods.
In the Artemis myth, Artemis is the virgin daughter of Zeus and Leto. After seeing her mother Leto go through a painful nine-days of labor for her brother Apollo, she asked Zeus for permission to remain an eternal virgin and to roam about helping women in childbirth. This is why Artemis is associated with childbirth as well as midwifery. A woman would pray in childbirth to the effect, “Goddess, give me a good birth or a quick death.”
Ephesus was the temple warden of the goddess Artemis, but over 50 cities in Asia Minor put images of Artemis on their coins. There were statues built during the Hellenistic period to Artemis the Savior. She was identified too with Roman goddess Diana and the Egyptian goddess Isis, leading to hybrid narratives and eclectic rites of devotion to her in various parts of the Roman east.
The Artemision, the massive temple complex, was to Ephesus what Disneyland is to Anaheim, in L.A. The Artemision was one of the largest buildings in the Mediterranean world, even larger than the Athenian Parthenon, it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The Artemision was the center of religious, social, economic, and political life in Ephesus. Artemis provided the sacred reality into which the residents of the city lived as the goddess was the patron and protector of the city. Which is why, it was easy to whip up a mob who could chant for two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:34). There was normally a bi-weekly ceremonial procession from the temple into Ephesus. Artemis’ birthday was celebrated on the sixth of May every year in elaborate ceremonies and devotion to the goddess was the measure of patriotism as much as piety in first century Ephesus.
By the first century, the Roman imperial officials had done everything they could to restore the revenues and rites to Artemis, even as they regulated worship of the goddess and integrated it into the official pantheon of religions, including the imperial cult. This is why there was a basilica dedicated to Artemis, Augustus, and Tiberius in the first century.
Strelan puts it well: “[I]n the first century Christians met a deity [Artemis] whose beneficent and protective power was experienced and appreciated by many in Ephesus, and whose temple in its sheer beauty and grandeur symbolized her presence.”
How does the Artemis cult help us make sense of 1 Tim 2:8-15.
Look at v. 9 with its prohibition about women wearing elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive clothes.
Yes, it’s true that exhortations against women wearing outlandish displays of wealth, apparel, and cosmetics can be found in many biblical passages and there were also the “New Roman Women” who were allegedly more extravagantly attired and somewhat incongruent in their behaviour which male Roman writers complain about. But the problem of overly decorated apparel was particularly acute in Ephesus where participants of the cult habitually dressed in extravagant fashion.
What is interesting is that if you read an ancient romance novel called Ephesiaca, set in Ephesus, written by Xenophon of Ephesus in the first-century, it describes in detail what a procession in the temple of Artemis looked like. Note this:
“A local festival for Artemis was underway, and from the city to her shrine, a distance of seven stades, all the local girls had to march sumptuously adorned (παρθένους κεκοσμημένας πολυτελῶ).”
Xenophon. Eph. 2.2.
Heading the line of girls was Anthia, daughter of Megamedes and Euippe, locals. Anthia’s beauty was marvelous and far surpassed the other girls. She was fourteen, her body was blooming with shapeliness, and the adornment of her dress enhanced her grace.
Her hair was blonde, mostly loose, only little of it braided, and moving as the breezes took it. Her eyes were vivacious, bright like a beauty’s but forbidding like a chaste girl’s; her clothing was a belted purple tunic, knee-length and falling loose over the arms, and over it a fawnskin with a quiver attached, arrows < . . . >, javelins in hand, dogs following behind.
Often when seeing her at the shrine, the Ephesians worshiped her as Artemis, so also at the sight of her on this occasion the crowd cheered; the opinions of the spectators were various, some in their astonishment declaring that she was the goddess herself was someone else fashioned by the goddess, but all of them prayed, bowed down, and congratulated her parents, and the universal cry among all the spectators was “Anthia the beautiful!”
Xenophob. Eph. 2.5-7.
What this means is that Paul is not just calling for modest dress in v. 9, to the effect that women shouldn’t show off their ostentatious bling, he is saying don’t dress like one of the priestesses and participants in the Artemis cult.
Furthermore, in the much later and apocryphal Acts of Paul, Paul encounters an Ephesian woman named Artemilla (symbolic I think) and Paul tells her to set aside her jewellery, finery, and fine clothing, to not trust in beauty or riches, and instead to put her hope in God, who gives freedom, and forgives sins. This is perhaps a parable of the Christian response to women involved in the Artemis cult!
Paul also says, They should make themselves attractive by doing good, which is appropriate for women who claim to honor God.
In effect, you honor God the Father, not by fashion but by faithful action, not by dress but by good deeds.
Sounds very relevant doesn’t it to women living in Ephesus!
11 A wife [woman] is to learn quietly with full submission.
I’m glad to see that most Complementarian scholars usually acknowledge here that women need to be taught and are worth teaching. Also, many note that the silence is not absolute, but just pertains to the period of instruction, which is never a good time to make a lot of fuss or noise.
Bob Yarbrough is good: “Paul is [not] issuing men a carte blanch to demand women’s wordless compliance at least in church matters and perhaps in all of life.”
Applied to the local context of Ephesus, a wife, or woman, reared on the Artemis cult needs to be a good disciple and learn from her teachers.
You have to remember that when a person converts from paganism to Christianity, they do not get the total package of theology in one hit as if the Nicene Creed and Westminster confession gets downloaded into their brain. New converts often engage in an immediate transfer of allegiances and know some of the basic theological facts of Christianity, but often they start out with a kind of theological syncretism until they defrag their mind from paganism and become more consistent and thorough-going in their Christian beliefs.
So these women, immersed in the “theology” and “culture” of the Artemis cult, and Ephesian polytheism in general, needed to be taught, and they should submit to the instructions of their male teachers.
While our egalitarian and anti-authoritarian culture does not like “submission,” you really should submit to your teachers, especially if they are teaching you important stuff like CPR, how to drive, or how to get saved, or how to grow in holiness.
I like how Trebilco and Rae put it: “The call then is not for total verbal silence from women, but for them to exhibit a peaceful and gentile attitude” in their learning.
Or else, the NIV-Reader’s version glosses it well: “When a woman is learning, she should be quiet. She should follow her leaders in every way.”
12 I don’t allow a wife [woman] to teach or to control her husband [or to exercise authority over a man]. Instead, she should be a quiet listener.
This is the main event and what we’ve all been waiting for.
I love what Christopher Hutson says, “this verse is the slender column that supports the entire stained-glass ceiling above which women are not allowed to rise in many churches.”
