Artemas (Ἀρτεμᾶς): Name, Artemis, and the New Testament World of Ephesus
Artemas appears only once in the New Testament—in Paul’s letter to Titus: “When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis” (Titus 3:12). Yet his brief mention opens a window onto the larger Greco-Roman setting in which the church took root, especially where the goddess Artemis (Latin: Diana) was honored and her name supplied countless theophoric personal names. Reading Artemas in light of Artemis of Ephesus (Acts 19) helps us feel the cultural pressure points early Christians navigated: public piety and festivals, civic finance tied to temples, debates over idols and food, and the task of planting and stabilizing congregations in that environment (Acts 19:23–41; 1 Cor 8–10; Rev 2:1–7).
1) Name and Setting: Artemas in an Artemis-Shaped World
Artemas is a shortened (“hypocoristic”) form built from Ἀρτεμίδωρος—“gift of Artemis.” Such names were common across the eastern Mediterranean; Jews and Gentiles alike sometimes bore theophoric names without implying ongoing cultic loyalty (cf. CPJ 30, 18; Acts 13:1; 18:2). The New Testament gives no backstory for Artemas, only that Paul could send him as a delegate to relieve Titus in Crete (Titus 1:5; 3:12). That assignment hints at tested reliability: Paul was careful about couriers and co-workers (1 Cor 16:10–12; Phil 2:19–22).
To hear Artemas’s name in its world, consider the stature of the goddess from whom it derived. Artemis is attested in Greek sources as a virgin huntress, “mistress of animals,” and (in many locales) guardian of women in pregnancy and childbirth. Locally adapted, she accrued a mosaic of epithets and cults. The most famous was Artemis of Ephesus, whose temple—in Paul’s era—served not only as sanctuary but also as bank, asylum, and engine of tourism and craft. Her month and festivals structured civic rhythms; her priests and virgin “bees” served; her image dominated coins and processions; and her reach extended via filial sanctuaries from Asia Minor to Spain. Against that backdrop, a Christian named Artemas underscores how the gospel moves through real people with ordinary names, not sanitized labels, transforming allegiance without erasing life histories (1 Thess 1:9; 1 Cor 7:17–24).
2) Artemis of Ephesus and the Mission Environment
Acts 19 portrays Ephesus as a testing ground. The message that “gods made with hands are not gods” (Acts 19:26; cf. 17:29; Isa 44:9–20; Ps 115:4–8) threatened an ecosystem: silversmiths who made miniature shrines, processions, regional pride, and the sense of civic protection under a goddess hailed as “great” (Acts 19:27–28, 34). The city clerk quieted the riot by appealing to what was “undeniable”—that Ephesus was “temple keeper of the great Artemis” and of an image “fallen from heaven” (Acts 19:35), a familiar ancient claim for a dark, venerable cult-image. The issue was not merely theology in the abstract; it was economy, identity, and public order.
That setting generated practical questions for believers. Food and idols. Paul’s counsel in Corinth distinguished eating in pagan temples (participation) from buying ordinary meat in the market (freedom tempered by love), lest conscience be wounded or fellowship confused (1 Cor 8:1–13; 10:14–33). Civic festivals. Revelation commends the Ephesian church for rejecting practices that entailed accommodation to idol feasts (Rev 2:2–6). Legal pluralism. Jews in Asia often enjoyed “isonomy,” the right to live by their ancestral laws; disputes arose when civic expectations for honoring deities met scruples about Sabbath, courts, or tax remittances (cf. Acts 18:12–17; 19:38–41). Into that complex world, Christian mission proclaimed the Creator who “does not live in temples made by man” (Acts 17:24), yet taught quiet, honest work and neighbor love in the city (1 Thess 4:11–12; Rom 13:8–10).
Understanding this social matrix sharpens Titus’s task in Crete—a different island but similar pressures: appoint elders, silence destabilizing teachers, shape households and trades into a living apologetic (Titus 1:5–16; 2:1–10; 3:1–8). When Paul plans to send “Artemas or Tychicus” so Titus can travel (Titus 3:12), we glimpse a mobile, resilient network able to sustain churches amid contested public religion.
3) Faithful Service and Public Witness: What Artemas Embodies
Artemas’s story is short, but the choice to entrust him with a regional handoff says much. First, it displays confidence in grace over pedigree. A name built from Artemis does not hinder service to Christ; what matters is new allegiance, sober doctrine, and proven character (2 Cor 5:17; Titus 2:11–14; 3:3–7). Second, it models missional pragmatism with theological clarity. Paul did not raid temples or organize counter-marches; he preached, catechized, reasoned, and commended the truth publicly and from house to house (Acts 19:8–10; 20:20–21). Where trade interests or public identity felt threatened, the church answered not with violence but with patient teaching and ethical distinctness (1 Pet 2:12–17; Rom 12:17–21).
Third, Artemas’s planned relief of Titus shows the priority of healthy leadership. In cultures saturated with revered images and processions, the church’s “image” is a set of embodied lives—elders above reproach, households ordered by the gospel, workers zealous for good works (Titus 1:5–9; 2:1–15; 3:1, 8). That is how communities weather the friction between public cult and Christian confession.
Finally, the juxtaposition of Artemas and Artemis keeps us honest about the scope of conversion. Early Christians did not merely reject idols; they learned how to live peaceably amid neighbors who loved them. They resisted participating in idolatry while respecting officials and seeking the city’s good (Jer 29:7; 1 Tim 2:1–2; Rom 13:1–7). The same Lord who “opened a door” for the word in Asia (1 Cor 16:9; Acts 19:10) also taught His people to walk wisely toward outsiders (Col 4:5–6). Artemas—ordinary name, faithful task—stands as one more witness that the gospel advances through such work.
Conclusion
Artemas is a quiet thread in the New Testament tapestry, but tug it and you feel the whole garment: the weight of Artemis in the eastern Mediterranean; the tangible stakes of idolatry, commerce, and civic honor; and the church’s call to form steady leaders and congregations amid that world. The name reminds us that grace renames people in substance, not always in syllables. The mission reminds us that truth confronts idols without mimicry of their power. And the assignment reminds us that the church grows when faithful workers take the next unglamorous post, so that others can strengthen what remains.
Bible Verses on Idols, Ephesus, and Gospel Mission
Titus 3:12 — “When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.”
Acts 19:26 — “You see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.”
Acts 19:28 — “When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’”
Acts 19:35 — “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?”
1 Corinthians 8:4 — “We know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one.’”
1 Corinthians 10:25–26 — “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.’”
Revelation 2:2–3 — “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance… how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not.”
Acts 17:24 — “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.”
Isaiah 44:17 — “And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it…”
Psalm 115:4–5 — “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.”
