Number 63 | December 27, 2005

Co-Workers: Aristarchus

After a lengthy holiday hiatus, Ekklesia Then & Now returns with the second in the co-workers series—articles about the early Christians Paul referred to as sunergos sunergos. The series began with Aquila and Priscilla and will continue over the coming months with thirteen additional people so honored. This issue introduces one of the more obscure but nonetheless important of Paul's co-workers, Aristarchus.

Aristarchus was a Macedonian from Thessalonica, one of Paul's most successful stops on his second missionary journey. His name, meaning "best ruler" suggests that he came from a family of some standing in the community, although it is also possible that he was given this name when he converted to Christianity, a practice that was fairly common among early Christians. This was particularly true among slaves, who were often given disparaging names by their Roman masters.

During Paul's first missionary journey, accompanied by Barnabas, he ventured into the Roman provinces of Pamphylia and Galatia in what is now central Turkey, gaining many converts and facing intense opposition in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:13-14:24). After their return to Syrian Antioch and the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1-29), Paul decided to return to the churches they had established, but he and Barnabas differed sharply about bringing John Mark, who had left them in Perga (Acts 13:13). Barnabas therefore took Mark on a separate mission back to Cyprus, while Paul chose Silas to accompany him (Acts 15:36-40).

After traveling through Galatia (having added young Timothy to their team in Lystra), Paul apparently planned to proceed to the province of Asia (western Turkey), but the Holy Spirit somehow forbade him, so he changed his plans to Bithynia (northern Turkey, on the Black Sea), but he was again dissuaded by the Spirit, so the team proceeded to Troas on the Aegean coast (Acts 16:6-8). There, Paul apparently met Luke, the Greek physician who was to become the author of a Gospel and the book of Acts. More important to his immediate future, Paul also received a vision of a man calling him to help those in Macedonia. Paul and his team therefore found passage across the Aegean and proceeded to Philippi and then to Thessalonica.

As was his regular practice, Paul first preached in the Synagogue, and Luke reports that some Jews, many devout Greeks, and "not a few of the leading women" were persuaded by Paul's message and converted, stirring up jealousy among some other Jews (Acts 17:4-5). Even though he is not mentioned at this juncture, it seems likely that Aristarchus was among these early devout Greeks who became Christian. He was probably what is often referred to as a lover, fearer, or worshipper of God in New Testament (e.g., Cornelius in Acts 10:2, men in Antioch in Acts 13:16, Lydia in Acts 16:14, Titus Justus in Acts 18:7). He may well have been among the brothers who, along with Jason, were dragged before the city authorities and accused of "acting against the decrees of Caesar." Jason apparently posted bail for the group, and they immediately urged Paul and Silas to leave Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-10). Luke does not mention Aristarchus at this time, so he may have remained with the fledgling church in Thessalonica, although a comment by Luke suggests that he, along with others, may have accompanied Paul.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy went on to Berea, where Thessalonian Jews stirred up crowds against him. Berean brothers spirited him out of town again, conducting him to Athens while Silas and Timothy remained behind, joining him later to Corinth (Acts 17:10-18:5). Paul remained in Corinth about eighteen months, finally leaving with Aquila and Priscilla. After a brief stopover in Ephesus, Paul continued on to Caesarea and Antioch, completing his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19-22). The Antioch church sponsored Paul's missions, and he undoubtedly reported the successful introduction of the Gospel in Europe before leaving on his third journey. Once again, he began by traveling through Galatia to strengthen the churches there, but his mind must have been set on his return to Ephesus, the most important city in the large Roman province of Asia (western Turkey) and a major commercial, financial, and religious center.

It is in Ephesus that we first encounter Aristarchus by name. Luke refers to him and Gaius (also a Macedonian) as "Paul's companions in travel" (Acts 19:29). I suspect these men had been with Paul since his first visit to Thessalonica. When Paul left Antioch on his second journey, he seems to have planned to go to Ephesus from Galatia, so the Antioch church would not have known of his foray into Greece. Bringing new Christians from there to testify to his sponsors would have provided proof of his success and been a source of encouragement. Whenever Aristarchus joined Paul as a traveling companion, we know he was in Ephesus during the riot of the silversmiths (Acts 19:24-41). In fact, when Demetrius incited his fellow silversmiths to oppose Paul, it was Aristarchus and Gaius who were seized and dragged into the theater. Paul wanted to rush to his friends, but other disciples restrained him.

Undoubtedly, Aristarchus and Gaius were in considerable jeopardy in the hands of the angry mob, but the Ephesus town clerk (Greek, grammateus, elsewhere translated "scribe") defused the situation by advising the accusers to act through the legal courts if they had a legitimate complaint. This grammateus appears to have been primarily concerned about the reaction of Roman officials to the riot. Historically, Romans responded to civil unrest with brutal efficiency. The primary responsibility emperors expected of their governors was the maintenance of public order. The grammateus dispersed the crowd, and Aristarchus and Gaius were released.

The riot apparently convinced Paul it was time to end his long stay in Ephesus, probably concluding that his departure would at least temporarily quiet the silversmiths' complaints. Luke is cryptic about this departure, writing only "(a)fter the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia" (Acts 20:1), but some scholars have suggested that Paul may have been put in protective custody for a time. Prior to Paul's imprisonments in Caesarea and Rome, the only other jailing Luke mentions is that in Philippi (Acts 16:15-40), but in his second letter to Corinth (written prior to his Caesarean jailing), Paul testifies that he has suffered "beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger" (2 Corinthians 6:5) on behalf of the gospel and has experienced "far more imprisonments (than other apostles)" (2 Corinthians 11:23).

Some who suggest Paul was jailed in Ephesus also suggest that some of his "prison epistles" (Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, and Ephesians, as well as the pastoral letters of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) traditionally attributed to his Roman imprisonment, were written from Ephesus. Primary candidates are Colossians and Philemon, which are companion letters, both delivered by Tychicus. In Paul's impassioned letter to Philemon, he implores the Colossian house church host to receive his escaped slave, Onesimus, as a brother. Scholars (see, for example, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's Paul: A Critical Life) have suggested that it would have been unlikely for an escaped slave to make his way to Rome. Ephesus, on the other hand, was about eighty miles from Colossae along a good Roman road. Paul mentions Aristarchus in both Colossians and Philemon, passing the Thessalonian's greetings to the church and referring to him as "my fellow prisoner" (Colossians 4:10) and "my fellow worker" (Philemon 1:24). If Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus, it appears that Aristarchus shared his situation.

Aristarchus was one of a large group of companions who accompanied Paul to Greece, where he remained for three months. Deciding to visit the Macedonian churches, Paul sent most of his contingent, including Aristarchus, to Troas to wait for him (Acts 20:1-6). In Troas, Aristarchus was probably a witness to Paul's healing of Eutychus, the young man who fell asleep during a lengthy Pauline sermon and fell from a third story window (Acts 20:7-12).

Aristarchus must have continued to travel with Paul on his journey to deliver the collection gathered by the Macedonian churches to the Jerusalem church, which was suffering through a major famine. In fact, he seems to have remained in Judea throughout Paul's incarceration in Caesarea because when Portius Festus, the Roman governor of Judea, finally fulfills Paul's request to make his defense before the Roman emperor, Luke reports that Aristarchus joins them on the Adramyttium ship bound for Lycia. Consequently, Aristarchus almost certainly experienced the shipwreck at Malta, witnessed Paul's survival of a venomous snake bite, and proceeded to Italy with Paul and Luke aboard a second Alexandrian ship (Acts 27:2-28:14). If Colossians and Philemon were written from Rome, rather than Ephesus, Paul considered Aristarchus a fellow prisoner in Rome.

Because Luke ends his narrative of the early church with Paul's house arrest in Rome, awaiting an audience with the Emperor Nero, we have no authoritative account of Paul's fate, nor of Aristarchus'. Roman Catholic tradition holds that Aristarchus was the first bishop (overseer) of Thessalonica, but if he was Paul's constant companion from the Apostle's first visit to Thessalonica (ca AD 51) until his arrival in Rome (ca AD 60), this seems unlikely since Aristarchus would have spent very little time in his home city. Furthermore, in his Ecclesiastical History (ca 320), Eusebius Pamphilius fails to cite Aristarchus as a bishop of Thessalonica even though Eusebius carefully chronicles the bishops of every major city from apostolic to his time.

A second Roman Catholic tradition suggests that Aristarchus was executed along with Paul in Rome. Many biblical scholars believe that Paul was released from his Roman imprisonment around AD 62 and proceeded on an unrecorded missionary journey to Spain. That Paul targeted Spain for a mission is documented by his own comments in Romans 15:24 and 28. This account of Paul's later life suggests that after the Spanish mission, he proceeded on a "farewell tour" of churches in Greece and Asia before returning to Rome, where he was again imprisoned (the occasion of his second letter to Timothy) and subsequently executed as a scapegoat for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. If this chronology is accurate, Artistarchus' proven loyalty suggests that he would have continued with the Apostle, and as a close associate, his execution would be likely. But when Paul writes what was likely his last letter while he sat in a Roman prison, he tells us that "Luke alone is with me" (2 Timothy 4:11). We have no clue of Aristarchus' fate.

Aristarchus is recognized as a Saint of the Roman Catholic church, and his feast day is celebrated on August 4. In The Choosing of the Seventy Holy Apostles, a forgery attributed to Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre, the name Aristarchus is mentioned twice, but the work is a forgery compiled by a Byzantine priest in the eighth century.

The Bible contain just five brief allusions to Aristarchus (Acts 19:29, 20:4, and 27:2; Colossians 4:10; and Philemon 24), and his name is unknown to most Christians, yet even the scant information given testifies to an incredible life of service and loyalty. He traveled with Paul for at least seven years and perhaps as many as thirteen. He was jailed for his faith and earned Paul's highest acclaim as sunergos sunergos (fellow worker). Along with Paul, he visited dozens of early churches and undoubtedly contributed to the spread of the gospel and the encouragement of the earliest Christians. If the tradition is true, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his commitment to Christ.

To me, the key moment in Aristarchus' Christian life must have come on that terrifying day in Ephesus when a rioting mob, infuriated over the loss of their income seized him and Gaius, dragging them into the Roman theater chanting praise to their pagan goddess Artemis. The mob was a mixture of Jews, antagonistic to everything Aristarchus believed in; enraged craftsmen who faced poverty because of Aristarchus' religion; and others who "did not know why they had come together" (Acts 19:32). The extraordinary danger of the situation is evidenced by the fact that other Christians prevented Paul from going into the mob. Certainly, they were concerned about the safety of Aristarchus and Gaius, but they must have recognized they could not oppose the crowd in a theater that held up to 25,000.

What thoughts passed through Aristarchus' mind as the cries to a pagan goddess he opposed crashed down on him for two hours? How many of us, after surviving such a harrowing experience, would have hastened back to our home town and lived out our lives as church people, quietly committed but unwilling to stick our necks out, professing our faith in our assemblies but remaining silent with the hordes of lost people around us? And consider that when Paul left Ephesus, he went to Greece and Macedonia, certainly passing through Thessalonica. How tempting would it be for anyone to just say, "As long as I'm home now, why don't I just stay here and help the church?" No one could have blamed Aristarchus had he done so, but he went on with Paul to Jerusalem.

When Paul was arrested and imprisoned in Caesarea, how long would any of us have waited around? When it became obvious after a couple of months that Felix was not going to release Paul, it would be tempting just to go home. No one could have blamed Aristarchus had he done so, but he stayed nearby for two years, waiting for his companion's release. When that time finally came, Paul wasn't freed; he was heading for Rome under guard. Still, Aristarchus remained with him despite the fact that a trip to the imperial capital held no reasonable hope for a happy conclusion. When the first ship docked at Cnidus in Lycia, a short voyage across the Aegean to Greece, would we have looked for a ship heading that way, particularly when winter approached and the Mediterranean storms threatened?

After surviving a terrifying storm and a shipwreck on a foreign island, who could have blamed Aristarchus for bidding Paul farewell and waiting on Malta for another ship—one headed for Corinth or Athens, where he could walk home? Aristarchus stayed with Paul and that decision may have cost him his life.

As we look to Scripture for examples of faith, commitment, loyalty, and courage, we need look no further than Aristarchus. By most accounts, he would be considered as "minor character," but his life was one of major discipleship. In that last letter to Timothy, Paul writes, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7). Aristarchus could say the same thing. When our lives near their end, could we?

Some responses from subscribers to ET&N 63:

Dear Dick,
This is a very well thought out and clear presentation of the man, Aristarcus. I have taught the book of Philemon many times and spoke briefly of Aristarcus. You have given me an over-all bird's eye view that I will use the next time I teach. However, I will also mention that you added to my pool if information. Hope the new year sees many good things come your way from the Throne.
Warmly, Jerry

Dick - This is really good, especially the application section. It makes me realize that there were many Aristarchuses out there that contributed to the growth of the faith that Rodney Stark (The Rise of Christianity) documents. Thanks for your thorough research and thoughtful application.
Steve

Dick,
Very interesting and scholarly piece! Your thoroughness was very impressive. I'll look forward to your future issues.
Terri

Note: I'm not sure why, but ET&N gained more new subscribers in the past three weeks than in the previous six months. Thanks to those who are apparently spreading the news.

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NEXT ISSUE: Cities of the New Testament: Lystra (January 10)

© Richard M. Soule, 2006 Unlimited copy and distribution permission is hereby granted on the condition that this copyright notice is included and no profiteering is involved.
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