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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Was Romans written from Ephesus?
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 13:28:13 -0800

Stephen,

thanks for questioning the Corinthian provenance of Romans. The evidence for
Corinth is indeed weak, but I don't think Ephesus is a better bet. Here's
why:

1. Romans must have been written at least several months after 1 Corinthians
because Prisca and Aquila were in Ephesus at the time of 1 Cor, and in Rome
at the time of Rom. Time must be allowed for Prisca and Aquila to travel to
Rome, to start a church in their house, and for the news of this to reach
Paul. I doubt that all this could have happened in the interval between the
writing of 1 Cor and Paul's departure from Ephesus. Paul probably wrote 1
Cor around Passover, and left Ephesus at Pentecost (1 Cor 16:8). This is a
period of only a few weeks. We have no evidence that Paul cancelled his
travel plan of 1 Cor 16:5-8.

2. Timothy was with Paul when Romans was written. At the time of 1 Cor
Timothy was taking the land route to Corinth via Macedonia. Now, Acts 19:22
mentions this journey of Timothy from Ephesus to Macedonia, and simply says
that Paul sent Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia while Paul stayed in Ephesus
a while longer. This seems to exclude the possibility that Timothy returned
to Paul in Ephesus. So Timothy was not in Ephesus after 1 Cor, and Prisca
and Aquila were not in Rome before 1 Cor. Therefore, I don't think Romans
can have been written from Ephesus. Of course, one could hypothesise that
Paul sent Timothy to Macedonia twice, and that Acts 19:22 represents a
different journey, but one should not multiply entities lightly.

3. As Michael Pahl points out, Phoebe was from Cenchreae, and this makes it
more likely that Romans was written from Achaia.

4. Sosipater is probably the Sopater of Acts 20:4 so an Achaian provenance
for Romans is preferred.

5. If Romans was written from Ephesus we would expect Paul to send greetings
from Sosthenes, who was there and was prominent enough to be the co-sender
of 1 Corinthians.

6. If Romans was written from Ephesus we would expect Gaius (Rom 16:23) to
send greetings to the Corinthians in 1 Cor, since Gaius, like Prisca and
Aquila, had been a Corinthian (1 Cor 1:14).

But there are some problems with the common assumption that Romans was
written from Corinth. As you point out, Stephen, 1 Cor 1:14 probably
indicates that Gaius had left Corinth. Furthermore, I am struck by the lack
of Corinthians mentioned in Romans 16, where we read only of Tertius,
Erastus, and Quartus. Why is there no mention of Stephanas or Titius Justus?
For these reasons Cenchreae is a better guess than Corinth, I think. It
seems to meet all the criteria.

Stephen, you made some interesting observations on Rom 15:26-28, indicating
that the collection in Achaia may not have been complete when Romans was
written. Does this suggest that the letter was not written in the spring, as
is normally supposes, but was written before the close of sailing the
previous season? You are proposing that Romans should be brought forward to
a time when the collection was not yet complete, but is it really necessary
to being it all the way back to Ephesus? Could we not just being it forward
by a few months, and leave it in Achaia?

I do not see an excessive number of Asians in Rom 16. Prisca and Aquila were
from Rome, and it is not surprising that they should return there after the
death of Claudius, and after Nero repealed some of his decrees. Prisca and
Aquila were important believers and had lived in both Corinth and Ephesus.
Their mention in Rom 16 tells us nothing about where Romans was written
from, as far as I can tell.

Your thoughts?

Richard.






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