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Bible Dictionaries
Town-Clerk
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The town-clerk of Ephesus (Acts 19:35-41), who displays tact and also points out the illegality of the whole proceedings of the crowd, with the proper means of redress if there be a real grievance, was a typical official of a Greek city with the Athenian type of constitution. In cities like Ephesus, which were the headquarters of a Roman governor, the town-clerk appears to have acted also as a kind of intermediary between the proconsul (with his staff) and the municipal authorities. The Acts narrative is in fact a precious document for the understanding of the town-clerk’s position. With the advent of the Empire the free democratic constitution of most provincial cities was suspended. The assemblies could be held only with the permission of the governor, who was an Imperial official (cf. Acts 19:38-41). No longer could a citizen bring a proposal before the assembly personally, but only through the presiding official. The old council of annually elected citizens remained, as did the old magistracies. These offices were held only by the rich, as no salary was attached to them. The στρατηγοί (see Magistrate, Praetor) and the γραμματεὺς τοῦ δήμου formed the magisterial board of the city. Every measure to be brought before the people must first have had their approval and support. These magistrates seem to have presided over the assembly in rotation. A decree passed by the assembly required the confirmation of the governor before it could become law. The high importance of the town-clerk appears from the fact that his name alone is frequently given as a means of dating a decree, and, if it is his second period of office, inscriptions indicate that in the usual way. An inscription of Branchidae in the same province of Asia as Ephesus (Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, no. 921) provides the best illustration of the import of this riotous assembly in Ephesus (C. G. Brandis, in Pauly-Wissowa [Note: auly-Wissowa Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyklopädie.] , ii. [1896] col. 1551). A citizen of Branchidae in 48 b.c. is celebrated on it as having gone on an embassy to Rome and restored to the people of Branchidae their former assembly and laws. Under the Empire privileges were apt to be taken away from cities if they were abused. This had happened in the case of Branchidae, and only the intervention of a prominent citizen, who took the journey to Rome and doubtless spent a large sum of money, was able to recover their old rights for the populace. So in Ephesus and elsewhere the local officials were most careful to avoid punishment from the Roman authorities on account of assemblies illegally summoned.
Literature.-O. Schulthess, s.v. γραμματεῖς in Pauly-Wissowa [Note: auly-Wissowa Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyklopädie.] , vii. [1912] cols. 1708-1780; J. Menadier, Qua conditions Ephesii uri sint inde ab Asia in formam provinciae redacta, Berlin, 1880; H. Swoboda, Die griechischen Volksbeschlüsse, Leipzig, 1890; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London, 1895, pp. 281 ff., 305.
A. Souter.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Town-Clerk'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/town-clerk.html. 1906-1918.
