St. Paul in Miletus

 St. Paul in Miletus

Miletus is located about 36 miles south of Ephesus. In the 5th century BC it was the greatest Greek city in the east, and a very important trading port. Miletus was also an important center of education. Great philosophers Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes – members of the well known Milesian school of philosophy, and Hecataeuss, the founder of geography, were all from Miletus. The city was also mentioned in the Bible, as the place visited by St. Paul.

Acts 20:14-16 Paul and his companions meet up at Assos and continue by ship asross the Aegean Sea to Mitylene on the island of Lesbos. The next evening they anchor off the island of Chios. The day after, they cross over to Samos, and the following day they arrive at Miletus.

After Paul had spent almost three years in Ephesus, why didn’t he meet the Ephesus church elders there but gathered them in Miletos instead? There could be few reasons for his decision.

Going to Ephesus could cause new problems for St Paul and his friends, he might have wished to avoid any problem. We shoudn’t forget that during his stay in Ephesus a riot started after the speech of Demetrius, and Paul and his friends were almost persecuted by the protesters. However, when we read about Paul, we understand that this could not be the reason; in many similar situations Paul didn’t hesitate to go to an unsafe or critical area and put his own life in danger. For example, Jerusalem was not safer than Ephesus for him and he knew that going to Jerusalem would bring persecution… So, why did he summon Ephesus elders in Miletus?

In Paul’s time there were no passenger ships, so people had to travel by merchant vessels and had no other choice but to follow the route of the ship. Another interesting question is, why would a ship pass nearby Ephesus, the most important trading city of Asia, without entering the harbour?

Historical evidence shows that the Gulf of Ephesus was gradually filled up with alluvium as the centuries passed by. Shallows and changes of depth caused by the silting action of the cayster River made the navigation very difficult. The entrance to the gulf grew narrower, and a channel was not easily kept safe for ships. The stages of this natural process cannot be precisely dated, but we know that engineering operations intended to improve the water-way were carried out in the 2nd century BC and in the 1st century after AD. When the ship on which St. Paul traveled from Troas to Jerusalem in AD 57 sailed past Ephesus without entering the harbour, this may be taken as a sign that ships were beginning to avoid Ephesus, unless it was really necessary to take or discharge cargo and passengers.

The state of the coast during the second century is shown by the following incident. Apollonius of Tyana, defending himself before Domitian, spoke of Ephesus as having now outgrown the site on which it had been placed and extended to the sea. This can serve as a proof that the sea no longer reached up to Ephesus when the speech was composed, and that it was not so distant from the city as the modern sea-shore. Historians suppose that the city never reached to the present coastline. But in the 2nd and 3rd century after Christ Ephesus was still a great trading city, and must have still had a harbour open, but probably not easy to access. Only a complex engineering work could keep the channel open. The last kilometre of the modern river course is straight, in contrast with the winding course immediately above. The channel is embanked with a carefully built wall, in order to increase the scour of the water, and this part of the course is obviously the result of well-thought measures for improving the bed of the river.

Acts does not inform us about the duration of the Paul’s stay in Miletus. After he decided that his mission here was over, putting the church in their care he walked to the harbour of farwell, embarked on a ship and continued his return voyage to Caesarea.

Acts 20:36-38 - With these words he knelt down with them all and prayed. All of them were in tears, and throwing their arms round Paul's neck they kissed him affectionately. What saddened them most of all was his saying that they would never see his face gain. And they went with him down to the ship.