mpeted for imperial temples because having one "could bring many pilgrims to a city during imperial festivals, and these pilgrims would have to purchase materials" (Rogers 11). Hence, any new temple meant not only immediate money, but status as well, much as a cities in the U.S. take pride in local colleges or universities.
Ephesus also had a tenuous relationship with the Jews living there but actively ignoring the temples and celebrations. "In 14 BC, Agrippa wrote to the boule and demos of Ephesos, perhaps at the instigation of Herod of Judaea, and ordered that the care of the money contributed by Jews to the temple in Jerusalem should be left in Jewish hands, and that no Jew should be required to appear in court on the Sabbath" (Rogers 10). Between money lost and special privileges, the pagans and Jews already had a tense relationship. Thus, Paul's sudden and overt attack on paganism in Ephesus not only threatened economic life but the Jews' own tenuous relationship with their fellow Ephesians. Jewish antipathy towards Paul and Christianity becomes more understandable in light of their facing animosity already because they try to worship the true and living God. (This is, coincidentally, exactly what Caiaphas said in John 11:48: "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and our nation.")
Rogers makes the observation that "Paul's success in spreading the news of the resurrection throughout the province - a success which cannot be quantified - must be set against the less well publicized expansion and growth of the imperial cult" (12). Because of the eventual spread of Christianity across the Roman empire and its adoption by the power centers in the form of Emperor Constantine many people imagine that it must have been a very popular and widely accepted religion. This is not true:
Particularly misleading is the oft-cherished belief that the first-century ...