Ephesus

EPHESUS

The capital of Ionia, a celebrated city of Asia Minor, situated near the mouth of the Cayster, about forty miles southeast of Smyrna. It was chiefly celebrated for the worship and temple of Diana, which last was, accounted one of the seven wonders of the world. See DIANA. Paul first visited Ephesus about A. D. 54, Mal 18:19,21 . This first brief visit was followed by a longer one towards the close of the same year, and continuing through the two following years, Mal 19:10 20:31. The church thus early established, enjoyed the laborers of Aquila and Priscilla, of Tychicus and Timothy. It was favored with one of the best of Paul’s epistles; its elders held an interview with him at Miletus, before he saw Rome, and he is supposed to have visited them after his first imprisonment. Here the apostle John is said to have spent the latter part of his life, and written his gospel and epistles; and having penned Christ’s message to them in the isle of Patmos, to have returned and died among them. Christ gives the church at Ephesus a high degree of praise, coupled with a solemn warning, Jer 2:1-5, which seems not to have prevented its final extinction, though it remained in existence six hundred years. But now its candlestick is indeed removed out of its place. The site of that great and opulent city is desolate. Its harbor has become a pestilential marsh; the lovely and fertile level ground south of the Cayster now languishes under Turkish misrule; and the heights upon its border bear only shapeless ruins. The outlines of the immense theatre, Mal 19:29, yet remain in the solid rock; but no vestige of the temple of Diana can be traced.

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Ephesus

(, a graecized form of a native Anatolian name)

The town of Ephesus was a little south of latitude 38N., at the head of a gulf situated about the middle of the western coast of Asia Minor. It lay on the left bank of the river Cayster, at the foot of hills which slope towards the river. In ancient times the river reached to the city pates, but its mouth has gradually silted up so that the city is now some four to six miles from the sea. The effect of the rivers action has been to raise the level of the land all over. The ruins, the most extensive in Asia Minor, give an idea of how large the ancient city was. The extent of the area covered by it cannot now be exactly estimated; but, as the population in St. Pauls time was probably about a third of a million, and in ancient times open spaces were frequent and sky-scrapers unknown, the city must have been large, even according to our standards. The temple of Artemis (see Diana), the ruins of which were discovered by Wood, lies now about five miles from the coast, and was the most imposing feature of the city. Its site must have been sacred from very early times, and successive temples were built on it. Other notable features of the city were the fine harbour along the banks of the Cayster, the aqueducts, and the great road following the line of the Cayster to Sardis, with a branch to Smyrna. The heat in summer is very great, and fever is prevalent. The harvest rain storms are violent. The site was nevertheless so attractive that it must have been very early occupied. The ancients dated the settlement of Ionian Greeks there early in the 11th cent. b.c., and the city long before St. Pauls time had become thoroughly Greek, maintaining constant intercourse with Corinth and the rest of Greece proper.

The history of the city, with its changing government, need not be traced here. It fell under Roman sway, with the rest of the district, which the Romans called Asia (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) by the will of Attalus iii. (Philometor), the Pergamenian king, in 133 b.c. In 88 b.c. the inhabitants sided with Mithridates, king of Pontus, and slaughtered all resident Romans. They were punished in 84 by Sulla, who ravaged the city. During the rule of Augustus the city was embellished by a number of new buildings.

When Ephesus came into contact with Christianity, it still retained all its ancient glory. With its Oriental religion, its Greek culture, its Roman government, and its world-wide commerce, it stood midway between two continents, being on the one hand the gateway of Asia to crowds of Western officials and travellers, as Bombay is the portal of India to-day, and on the other hand the rendezvous of multitudes of Eastern pilgrims coming to worship at Artemis shrine. Traversed by the great Imperial highway of intercourse and commerce, it had all nationalities meeting and mingling in its streets. No wonder if it felt its ecumenical importance, and believed that what was said and done by its citizens was quickly heard and imitated by all Asia and the world ( , Act 19:27).

In Ephesus a noble freedom of thought and a vulgar superstition lived side by side. The city of Thales and Heraclitus contained many men of rich culture and deep philosophy, who were earnest seekers after truth. Prominent citizens like the Asiarchs (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), who were officially bound to foster the cultus of Rome and the Emperor, yet regarded St. Paul and his message with marked friendliness (Act 19:31). Nothing but a wide-spread receptivity to fresh ideas can account for the wonderful success of the first Christian mission in the city, and for the reverberation of the truth almost throughout all Asia (Act 19:26). The best mind of the age was wistfully awaiting a new order of things. Having tried eclecticism and syncretism in vain, it was standing between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. When, therefore, the startling news came from Syria to Ephesus that the Son of God had lived, died, and risen again, it ran like wildfire; its first announcement created another Pentecost (Act 19:6); and in two years all they who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks (Act 19:10).

Every spiritual revival has ethical issues, and Ephesus quickly recognized that the new truth was a new Way (Act 19:23). The doctrine now taught in the School or Tyrannus, formerly the home of one knows not what subtle and futile theories, had a direct bearing upon human lives. That was why it made no small stir (Act 19:23). The message which St. Paul delivered publicly and from house to house (Act 20:20), admonishing men night and day with tears (Act 20:31), was morally revolutionary. It was a call to repentance and faith (Act 20:21); and, though no frontal attack was made upon the established religion of Ephesus, and no language used which could fairly be construed as offensive (Act 19:37), yet it soon became apparent that the old order and the new could not thrive peacefully side by side. The gospel of mercy to all was a gage of battle to many. St. Paul, therefore, found that, while Ephesus opened a door wide and effectual () there were many adversaries (1Co 16:9). This did not surprise or disappoint him. The fanatical hatred of Ephesus was better than the polite scorn of Athens. As the city of Artemis lived largely upon the superstition of the multitude, not only the priests who enjoyed the rich revenues of the Temple, but also the artisans who made shrines for pilgrims, felt that if Christianity triumphed their occupation would be gone. Religion was for Ephesus a lucrative business (, Act 19:24-25), and the craft ( , this branch of trade) of many was in danger. Indeed, the dispute which arose affected the whole city, being regarded as nothing less than a duel between Artemis and Christ. If He were enthroned in the Ephesian heart, she would be deposed from her magnificence, and the greatest temple in the world made of no account (Act 19:27). The situation created a drama of real life which was enacted in and around the famous theatre of Ephesus. The gild of silversmiths, led by their indignant president Demetrius (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ); the ignorant mob, excited to fanatical frenzy; the crafty Jews, quick to dissociate themselves from their Christian compatriots; the brave Apostle, eager to appear before the people ( ) of a free city; the friendly Asiarchs, constraining him to temper valour with discretion; the calm, dignified, eloquent Secretary (), stilling the angry passions of the multitude; and behind all, as unseen presences, the majesty of Imperial Rome, the sensuous charm of Artemis, the spiritual power of Christ-these all combined to give a sudden revelation of the soul of a city. The practical result was that a vindication of the liberty of prophesying was drawn from the highest municipal authority, who evidently felt that in this matter he was interpreting the mind of Rome herself. To represent Christianity as a religio licita was clearly one of the leading aims of St. Luke as a historian.

The fidelity of St. Lukes narrative in its political allusions and local colour has received confirmation from many sources. As the virtual capital of a senatorial province, Ephesus had its proconsuls (, Act 19:38), but here the plural is merely used colloquially, without implying that there could ever be more than one at a time. As the head of a conventus iuridicus, Ephesus was an assize town, in which the judges were apparently sitting at the very time of the riot (Act 19:38). Latin was the language of the courts, and is the translation of conventus aguntur. As a free city of the Empire, Ephesus had still a semblance of ancient Ionic autonomy; her affairs were settled in a regular assembly (v, 39), i.e. either at an ordinary meeting of the Demos held in the theatre on a fixed day, or at an extraordinary meeting called by authority of the proconsul. Irregular meetings of the populace were sternly prohibited (Act 19:40) and, indeed, the powers of the lawful assembly were more and more curtailed, till at last it practically had to content itself with registering the decrees of the Roman Senate. The proud claim of Ephesus to be the temple-warden (, lit. [Note: literally, literature.] temple-sweeper) of Artemis (Act 19:35) is attested by inscriptions and coins (W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895, i. 58; Letters to the Seven Churches, 232). The Asiarchs who befriended St. Paul had no official connexion with the cult of Artemis; they were members of the Commune whose function it was to unite the Empire in a religious devotion to Rome.

St. Pauls pathetic address at Miletus to the elders of Ephesus (Act 20:16-35), in which he recalls the leading features of his strenuous mission in the city-his tears and trials (Act 20:19), his public and private teaching (Act 20:20), his incessant spiritual and manual toil (Act 20:31-34)-and declares himself pure from the blood of all men (Act 20:26), presents as high an ideal of the ministerial vocation as has ever been conceived and recorded. There is no reason to doubt that it gives an approximate summary of his original words (cf. J. Moffatt, Introd. to Literature of the New Testament (Moffatt)., p. 306).

With the religious history of Ephesus are also associated the names of Priscilla and Aquila (Act 18:18), Apollos (Act 18:24, 1Co 16:12), Tychicus (Eph 6:21), Timothy (1Ti 1:3, 2Ti 4:9), and especially John the Apostle and John the Presbyter. After the departure of St. Paul the Ephesian Church was injured by the activity of false teachers (Act 20:29-30; Rev 2:4), but the Fall of Jerusalem greatly enhanced its importance, and the influence of the Johannine school made it the centre of Eastern Christianity. In the time of Domitian it had the primacy among the Seven Churches of Asia (Rev 2:1). The Letter to the Church of Ephesus is on the whole laudatory. The Christian community commanded the writers respect by its keen scrutiny of soi-disant apostles, by its intolerance of evil, and its hatred of the libertinism which is the antithesis of legalism. But it had declined in the fervent love which alone made a Church truly lovable to the Apostle. A generation later, however, Ignatius in his Ep. to the Ephesians uses the language of profound admiration:

I ought to be trained for the contest by you in faith, in admonition, in endurance in long-suffering ( 3); for ye all live according to the truth and no heresy hath a home among you; nay, ye do not so much as listen to any one if he speak of aught else save concerning Jesus Christ in truth ( 6); you were ever of one mind with the Apostles in the power of Jesus Christ ( 11).

Ephesus had a long line of bishops, and was the seat of the council which condemned the doctrine of Nestorius in a.d. 431. The ruins of the ancient city, on Coressus and Prion, are extensive and impressive. The theatre in which the riot (Acts 19) Look place is remarkably well preserved, and in 1870 the foundation of the Temple of Artemis was discovered by J. T. Wood. The modern village lying beside the temple bears the name of Ayasoluk, which is a corruption of , the title of St. John the Divine which was given to the Church of Justinian.

Literature.-W. M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches, 1904; Murrays Handbook to Asia Minor, 1895; G. A. Zimmermann, Ephesos im ersten christl. Jahrhundert, 1874; article Ephesus in Pauly-Wissowa [Note: auly-Wissowa Pauly-Wissowas Realencyklopdie.] , v. [1905]; J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, 1876; E. L. Hicks, Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the Brit. Museum, iii. 2 [1890]; D. G. Hogarth, Excavations in Ephesus: the Archaic Artemisia, 2 vols., 1908.

Alexander Souter and James Strahan.

Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church

Ephesus

City, Lydia, Asia Minor , capital of Proconsular Asia; one of the seven churches to whose bishop Saint John was commanded to write (Apocalypse 1). To the faithful chiefly in this city Paul addressed his letter “to the Ephesians .” It became an archbishopric and is now a titular see. There was held the Third General Council and also the “Robber Council of Ephesus.”

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Ephesus

A titular archiespiscopal see in Asia Minor, said to have been founded in the eleventh century B.C. by Androcles, son of the Athenian King Codrus, with the aid of Ionian colonists. Its coinage dates back to 700 B.C., the period when the first money was struck. After belonging successively to the kings of Lydia, the Persians, and the Syrian successors of Alexander the Great, it passed, after the battle of Magnesia (199 B.C.), to the kings of Pergamum, the last of whom, Attalus III, bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people (133 B.C.). It was at Ephesus that Mithradates (88 B.C.) signed the decree ordering all the Romans in Asia to be put to death, in which massacre there perished 100,000 persons. Four years later Sulla, again master of the territory, slaughtered at Ephesus all the leaders of the rebellion. From 27 B.C. till a little after A.D. 297, Ephesus was the capital of the proconsular province of Asia, a direct dependency of the Roman Senate. Though unimportant politically, it was noted for its extensive commerce. Many illustrious persons were born at Ephesus, e.g. the philosophers Heraclitus and Hermodorus, the poet Hipponax, the painter Parrhasius (all in the sixth or fifth century B.C.), the geographer Artemidorus, another Artemidorus, astrologer and charlatan, both in the second century of the Christian Era, and the historian and essayist, Xenophon. Ephesus owed its chief renown to its temple of Artemis (Diana), which attracted multitudes of visitors. Its first architect was the Cretan Chersiphron (seventh to sixth century B.C.) but it was afterwards enlarged. It was situated on the bank of the River Selinus and its precincts had the right of asylum. This building, which was looked upon in antiquity as one of the marvels of the world, was burnt by Herostratus (356 B.C.) the night of the birth of Alexander the Great, and was afterwards rebuilt, almost in the same proportions, by the architect Dinocrates. Its construction is said to have lasted 120 years, according to some historians 220. It was over 400 feet in length and 200 in breadth, and rested upon 128 pillars of about sixty feet in height. It was stripped of its riches by Nero and was finally destroyed by the Goths (A.D. 262).

It was through the Jews that Christianity was first introduced into Ephesus. The original community was under the leadership of Apollo (1 Corinthians 1:12). They were disciples of St. John the Baptist, and were converted by Aquila and Priscilla. Then came St. Paul, who lived three years at Ephesus to establish and organize the new church; he was wont to teach in the schola or lecture-hall of the rhetorician Tyrannus (Acts 19:9) and performed there many miracles. Eventually he was obliged to depart, in consequence of a sedition stirred up by the goldsmith Demetrius and other makers of ex-votoes for the temple of Diana (Acts 18:24 sqq.; 19:1 sqq.). A little later, on his way to Jerusalem, he sent for the elders of the community of Ephesus to come to Miletus and bade them there a touching farewell (Acts 20:17-35). The Church of Ephesus was committed to his disciple, St. Timothy, a native of the city (1 Timothy 1, 3; 2 Timothy 1, 18; 4:12). The Epistle of St. Paul to the Esphesians was not perhaps addressed directly to them; it may be only a circular letter sent by him to several churches. The sojourn and death of the Apostle St. John at Ephesus are not mentioned in the New Testament, but both are attested as early as the latter part of the second century by St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., III, iii, 4), Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V, xxi), Clement of Alexandria, the “Acta Joannis”, and a little earlier by St. Justin and the Montanists. Byzantine tradition has always shown at Ephesus the tomb of the Apostle. Another tradition, which may be trustworthy, though less ancient, makes Ephesus the scene of the death of St. Mary Magdalen. On the other hand the opinion that the Blessed Virgin died there rests on no ancient testimony; the often quoted but ambiguous text of the Council of Ephesus (431), means only that there was at that time at Ephesus a church of the Virgin. (See Ramsay in “Expositor”, June, 1905, also his “Seven Cities of Asia”.) We learn, moreover, from Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, xxiv) that the three daughters of the Apostle St. Philip were buried at Ephesus.

About 110 St. Ignatius of Antioch, having been greeted at Smyrna by messengers of the Church of Ephesus, sent to it one of his seven famous epistles. During the first three centuries, Ephesus was, next to Antioch, the chief centre of Christianity in Asia Minor. In the year 190 its bishop, St. Polycrates, held a council to consider the paschal controversy and declared himself in favour of the Quartodeciman practice; nevertheless the Ephesian Church soon conformed in this particular to the practice of all the other Churches. It seems certain that the sixth canon of the Council of Nicaea (325), confirmed for Ephesus its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole “diocese” or civil territory of Asia Minor, i.e. over the eleven ecclesiastical provinces; at all events, the second canon of the Council of Constantinople (381) formally recognized this authority. But Constantinople was already claiming the first rank among the Churches of the East and was trying to annex the Churches of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus. To resist these encroachments, Ephesus made common cause with Alexandria. We therefore find Bishop Memnon of Ephesus siding with St. Cyril at the Third Ecumenical Council, held at Ephesus in 431 in condemnation of Nestorianism, and another bishop, Stephen, supporting Dioscorus at the so-called Robber Council (Latrocinium Ephesinum) of 449, which approved the heresy of Eutyches. But the resistance of Ephesus was overcome at the Council of Chalcedon (451), whose famous twenty-eighth canon placed the twenty-eight ecclesiastical provinces of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Henceforth Ephesus was but the second metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, nor did it ever recover its former standing, despite a council of 474 in which Paul, the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria restored its ancient rights. Egyptian influence was responsible for the hold which Monophysitism gained at Ephesus during the sixth century; the famous ecclesiastical historian, John of Asia, was then one of its bishops. The metropolis of Ephesus in those days ruled over thirty-six suffragan sees. Justinian, who imitated Constantine in stripping the city of many works of art to adorn Constantinople, built there a magnificent church consecrated to St. John; this was soon a famous place of pilgrimage.

Ephesus was taken in 655 and 717 by the Arabs. Later it became the capital of the theme of the Thracesians. During the Iconoclastic period two bishops of Ephesus suffered martyrdom, Hypatius in 735 and Theophilus in the ninth century. In the same city the fierce general Lachanodracon put to death thirty-eight monks from the monastery of Pelecete in Bithynia and other partisans of the holy images. In 899 Leo the Wise transferred the relics of St. Mary Magdalen to Constantinople. The city was captured in 1090 and destroyed by the Seljuk Turks, but the Byzantines succeeded in retaking it and rebuilt it on the neighbouring hills around the church of St. John. Henceforth it was commonly called Hagios Theologos (the holy theologian, i.e. St. John the Divine), or in Turkish Aya Solouk (to the Greeks the Apostle St. John is “the Theologian”); the French called the site Altelot and the Italians Alto Luogo. At the beginning of the thirteenth century its metropolitan, Nicholas Mesarites, had an important role at the conferences between the Greeks and the Latins. The city was again plundered by the Turks in the first years of the fourteenth century, then by the Catalonian mercenaries in the pay of the Byzantines, and once more by the Turks. The church of St. John was transformed into a mosque, and the city was ruled by a Turkish ameer, who carried on a little trade with the West, but it could no longer maintain its Greek bishop. A series of Latin bishops governed the see from 1318 to 1411. The ruin of Ephesus was completed by Timur-Leng in 1403 and by nearly a half-century of civil wars among its Turkish masters. When at the council of Florence in 1439 Mark of Ephesus (Marcus Eugenicus) showed himself so haughty toward the Latins, he was the pastor of a miserable village, all that remained of the great city which Pliny once called alterum lumen Asiae, or the second eye of Asia (Hist. nat., V, xxix; also Apoc., ii, 5; cf. W. Brockhoff, “Ephesus vom vierten christlich. Jhdt. bis seinem Untergang:, Jena, 1906).

Today Aya Solouk has 3000 inhabitants, all Greeks. It is situated in the caza of Koush Adassi, in the vilayet of Aiden or Smyrna, about fifty miles from Smyrna, on the Smyrna-Aidin railway. The ruins of Ephesus stand in the marshy and unhealthy plain below the village. There are the remains of the temple of Diana, the theatre, with a capacity of 25,000 spectators, the stadium, the great gymnasium, and the “Double Church”, probably the ancient cathedral, one aisle of which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the other to St. John, where the councils of 431 and 449 were held. The Greek metropolitan resides at Manissa, the ancient Magnesia.

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Wood, On the Antiquities of Ephesus having relation to Christianity in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archeology, VI, 328; Idem, Discoveries at Ephesus (London, 1877); Falkener, Ephesus and the Temple of Diana (London, 1862); Arundell, Discoveries in Asia Minor (London, 1834), II, 247-272; Barclay-Head, History of the Coinage of Ephesus (London, 1880); Guhl, Ephesiaca (Berlin, 1843); Curtius, Ephesos (Berlin, 1874); Benndorf, Forschungen in Ephesos (Vienna, 1905); Chapot, La province Romaine proconsulaire d’Asie (Paris, 1904); Gude, De ecclesiae ephesinae statu aevo apostolorum (Paris, 1732); Cruse-Blicher, De statu Ephesiorum ad quos scripsit Paulus (Hanover, 1733); Le Camus in Vig., Dict. de la Bible, s.v. Ephese; Zimmermann, Ephesos im ersten christl. Jhdt. (Berlin, 1894): Lequien, Oriens christianus (Paris, 1740), I, 671-694; Brockhoff, Studien zur Gesch. der Stadt Ephesos (Jena, 1905); Weber, Le guide du voyageur a Ephese (Smyrna, 1891); Buerchner, Ephesos in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyc., s.v.; Ramsey, The Seven Cities of Asia (London, 1907).

S. VAILHÉ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VCopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Ephesus

(, according to one legend from , the permission given by Hercules to the Amazons to settle here), an illustrious city (Athen. 8:361) in the district of Ionia ( , Steph. Byz. s.v.), on the western coast of the peninsula commonly called Asia Minor not that this geographical term was known in the first century. The ASIA of the N.T. was simply the Roman province which embraced the western part of the peninsula. Of this province Ephesus was the capital. SEE ASIA MINOR.

1. History. It was one of the twelve Ionian cities in Asia Minor in the mythic times (Herod. 1:142), and said to have been founded by the Amazons, but in later times inhabited by the Carians and Leleges (Strabo, 14:640), and taken possession of by the Ionians under Androclus, the son of Codrus (Cramer, Asia Miswr, 1:363). Besides the name by which it is best known, it bore successively those of Samorna, Trachea, Ortygia, and Ptelea. Being founded by Androclus, the legitimate son of Codrus, it enjoyed a pre-eminence over the other members of the Ionian confederacy, and was denominated the royal city of Ionia. The climate and country which the colonists from Attica had selected as their future abode surpassed, according to Herodotus (1:142), all others in beauty and fertility; and, had the martial spirit of the Ionians corresponded to their natural advantages, they might have grown into a powerful independent nation. The softness, however; of the climate, and the ease with which the necessaries of life could be procured, transformed the hardy inhabitants of the rugged Attica into an indolent and voluptuous race: hence they fell successively under the power of the Lydians (B.C. 560) and the Persians (B.C. 557); and, though the revolt of Histioeus and Aristagoras against the Persian power was for a time successful, the contest at length terminated in favor of the latter (Herod. 6:7-22). The defeat of the Persians by the Greeks gave a temporary liberty to the Ionian cities; but the battle of Mycale transferred the virtual dominion of the country to Athens. During the Peloponnesian war they paid tribute indifferently to either party, and the treaty of Antalcidas (B.C. 387) once more restored them to their old masters the Persians. They beheld with indifference the exploits of Alexander and the disputes of his captains, and resigned themselves without a struggle to successive conquerors. Ephesus was included in the dominions of Lysimachus; but, after the defeat of Antiochus (B.C. 190), it was given by the Romans to the kings of Pergamum. In the year B.C. 129 the Romans formed their province of Asia. The fickle Ephesians took part with Mithridates against the Romans, and massacred the garrison: they had reason to be grateful for the unusual clemency of L. Cornelius Sulla, who merely inflicted heavy fines upon the inhabitants. Thenceforward the city formed part of the Roman empire. While, about the epoch of the introduction of Christianity, the other cities of Asia Minor declined, Ephesus rose more and more. It owed its prosperity in part to the favor of its governors, for Lysimachus named the city Arsinoe in honor of his second wife, and Attalus Philadelphus furnished it with splendid wharves and docks; in part to the favorable position of the place, which naturally made it the emporium of Asia on this side the Taurus (Strabo, 14:641, 663). Under the Romans, Ephesus was the capital not only of Ionia, but of the entire province of Asia, and bore the honorable title of the first and greatest metropolis of Asia (Bockh, Coap. Inscript. Graec. 2968-2992). The bishop of Ephesus in later times was the president of the Asiatic dioceses, with the rights and privileges of a patriarch (Evagr. Hist. Ecc 3:6). Towards the end of the 11th century Ephesus experienced the same fate as Smyrna; and, after a brief occupation by the Greeks, it surrendered in 1308 to sultan Saysan, who, to prevent future insurrections, removed most of the inhabitants to Tyriaeum, where they were massacred

2. Biblical Notices. That Jews were established there in considerable numbers is known from Josephus (Ant. 14:10, 11), and might be inferred from its mercantile eminence; but it is also evident from Act 2:9; Act 6:9. In harmony with the character of Ephesus as a place of concourse and commerce, it is here, and here only, that we find disciples of John the Baptist explicitly mentioned after the ascension of Christ (Act 18:25; Act 19:3). The case of Apollos (Act 18:24) is an exemplification further of the intercourse between, this place and Alexandria. The first seeds of Christian truth were possibly sown at Ephesus immediately after the great Pentecost (Act 2:1-47). Whatever previous plans Paul may have entertained (Act 16:6), his first visit was on his return from the second missionary circuit (Act 18:19-21), and his stay on that occasion was very short; nor is there any proof that he found any Christians at Ephesus, but he left there Aquila and Priscilla (Act 18:19), who both then and at a later period (2Ti 4:19) were of signal service. In Paul’s own stay of more than two years (Act 19:8; Act 19:10; Act 20:31), which formed the most important passage of his third circuit, and during which he labored, first in the synagogue (Act 19:8), and then in the school of Tyrannus (Act 19:9), and also in private houses (Act 20:20), and during which he wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians, we have the period of the chief evangelization of this shore of the AEgean. The direct narrative in Act 19:1-41 receives but little elucidation from the Epistle to the Ephesians, which was written after several years from Rome; but it is supplemented in some important particulars (especially as regards the apostle’s personal habits of self-denial, Act 20:34) by the address at Miletus. This address shows that the Church at Ephesus was thoroughly organized under its presbyters. On leaving the city, the apostle left Timothy in charge of the Church there (1Ti 1:3), a position which he seems to have retained for a considerable period, as we learn from the second epistle addressed to him. SEE TIMOTHY. Among Paul’s. other companions, two, Trophimus and Tychicus, were natives of Asia (Act 20:4), and the latter probably (2Ti 4:12), the former certainly (Act 21:29), natives of Ephesus. In the same connection we ought to mention Onesiphorus (2Ti 1:16-18) and his household (4:19). On the other hand must be noticed certain specified Ephesian antagonists of the apostle, the sons of Sceva and his party (Act 19:14), Hymenaeus and Alexander (1Ti 1:20; 2Ti 4:14), and Phygellus and Hermogenes (2Ti 1:15). SEE PAUL. Ephesus is also closely connected with the apostle John, not only as being the scene (Rev 1:11; Rev 2:1) of the most prominent of the churches of the Apocalypse, but also in the story of his later life as given by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3:23, etc.). According to a tradition which prevailed extensively in ancient times, John spent many years in Ephesus, where he employed himself most diligently for the spread of the Gospel, and where he died at a very old age, and was buried. SEE JOHN (THE APOSTLE). Possibly ‘his Gospels and Epistles were written here. There is a tradition that the mother of our Lord was likewise buried at Ephesus, as also Timothy. Some make John bishop of the Ephesian communities, while others ascribe that honor to Timothy. In the book of Revelation (Rev 2:1) a favorable testimony is borne to the Christian churches at Ephesus. Ignatius addressed one of his epistles to the Church of this place ( , , Hefele, Pat. Apostol. page 154), which held a conspicuous position during the early ages of Christianity, and was in fact, the metropolis of the churches of this part of Asia.

3. Location. Ephesus lay on the Egoean coast, nearly opposite the island of Samos, 320 stadia from Smyrna (Strabo, 14:632). The ancient town seems to have been confined to the northern slope of Coressus (Herod. 1:26), but in the lapse of time the inhabitants advanced farther into the plain, and thus a new town sprang up around the temple (Strabo, 14:640). All the cities of Ionia were remarkably well situated for the growth of commercial prosperity (Herod. 1:142), and none more so than Ephesus. With a fertile neighborhood (Strabo, 14:637) and an excellent climate, it was also most conveniently placed for traffic with all the neighboring parts of the Levant. In the time of Augustus it was the great emporium of all the regions of Asia within the Taurus (Strabo, 14:950); its harbor (named Panormus), at the mouth of the Cayster, was elaborately constructed, though alluvial matter caused serious hinderances both in the time of Attalus and in Paul’s own time (Tacitus, Ann. 16:23). The apostle’s life alone furnishes illustrations of its mercantile relations with Achaia on the W., Macedonia on the N., and Syria on the E. At the close of his second missionary circuit, he sailed across from Corinth to Ephesus (Act 18:19), when on his way to Syria (Act 18:21-22): some think that he once made the same short voyage over the AEgaean, in the opposite direction, at a later period. SEE CORINTHIANS, FIRST EP. TO. On the third missionary circuit, besides the notice of the journey from Ephesus to Macedonia (Act 19:21; Act 20:1), we have the coast voyage on the return to Syria given in detail (20, 21), and the geographical relations of this city with the islands and neighboring parts of the coast minutely indicated (Act 20:15-17). To these passages we must add 1Ti 1:3; 2Ti 4:12; 2Ti 4:20; though it is difficult to say confidently whether the journeys implied there were by land or by water. See likewise Act 19:27; Act 20:1.

As to the relations of Ephesus to the inland regions of the continent, these also are prominently brought before us in the apostle’s travels. The “upper coasts” ( , Act 19:1), through which he passed when about to take up his residence in the city, were the Phrygian table- lands of the interior; and it was probably in the same district that on a previous occasion (Act 16:6) he formed the unsuccessful project of preaching the Gospel in the district of Asia. Two great roads at least, in the Roman times, led eastward from Ephesus; one through the passes of Tmolus to Sardis (Rev 3:1), and thence to Galatia and the N.E., the other round the extremity of Pactyas to Magnesia, and so up the valley of the Mieander to Iconium, whence the communication was direct to the Euphrates and to the Syrian Antioch. There seem to have been Sardian and Magnesian gates on the E. side of Ephesus corresponding to these roads respectively. There were also coast-roads leading northwards to Smyrna, and southwards to Miletus. By the latter of these it is probable that the Ephesian elders traveled when summoned to meet Paul at the latter city (Act 20:17-18). Part of the pavement of the Sardian road has been noticed by travelers under the cliffs of Gallesus. SEE LEAKE’S ASIA MINOR, AND MAP.

Among the more marked physical features of the peninsula are the two large rivers, Hermus and Mseander, which flow from a remote part of the interior westward to the Archipelago, Smyrna (Rev 2:8) being near the mouth of one, and Miletus (Act 20:17) of the other. Between the valleys drained by these two rivers is the shorter stream and smaller basin of the Cayster, called by the Turks Kutschuk-Mendere, or the Little Maeander. Its upper level (often called the Caystrian meadows) was closed to the westward by the gorge between Gallesus and Pactyas, the latter of these mountains being a prolongation of the range of Messogis, which bounds the valley of the Maeander on the north, the former more remotely connected with the range of Tmolus, which bounds the valley of the Hermus on the south. Beyond the gorge and towards. the sea the valley opens out again into an alluvial flat (Herod. 2:10), with hills rising abruptly from it. The plain is now about 5 miles in breadth, but formerly it must have been smaller, and some of the hills were once probably islands. Here Ephesus stood, partly on the level ground and partly on the hills.

Of the hills, on which a large portion of the city was built, the two most important were Prion and Coressus, the latter on the S. of the plain, and being, in fact, almost a continuation of Pactyas, the former being in front of Coressus and near it, though separated by a deep and definite valley. Further to the N.E. is another conspicuous eminence. It seems to be the hill mentioned by Procopius (De AEdif. 5:1) as one on which a church dedicated to the apostle John was built; and its present name Ayasaluk is absurdly thought to have reference to him, and to be a corruption of his traditionary title . (See generally Cellarii Notit. 2:80.)

4. Government. It is well known that Asia was a proconsular province; and in harmony with this fact we find proconsuls (, A.V. “deputies”) specially mentioned (Act 19:38). Nor is it necessary to inquire here whether the plural in this passage is generic, or whether the governors of other provinces were present in Ephesus at the time. Again, we learn from Pliny (5:31) that Ephesus was an assize-town (Jorum or conventus); and in the N.T. narrative (Act 19:38) we find the court- days alluded to as actually being held ( , A.V. ” the law is open”) during the uproar; though perhaps it is not absolutely necessary to give the expression this exact reference as to time (see Wordsworth in loc.). Ephesus itself was a “free city,” and had its own assemblies and its own magistrates. The senate (, or ) is mentioned not only by Strabo, but by Josephus (Ant. 14:10, 25; 16:6, 4 and 7); and Luke, in the narrative before us, speaks of the (Act 19:30; Act 19:33, A.V. “the people”) and of its customary assemblies ( , Act 19:39, A.V. “a lawful assembly”). That the tumultuary meeting which was gathered on the occasion in question should take place in the theater (Act 19:29; Act 19:31) was nothing extraordinary. It was at a meeting in the theater at Caesarea that Agrippa I received his death-stroke (Act 12:23), and in Greek cities this was often the place for large assemblies (Tacitus, Hist. 2:80; Val. Max. 2:2).

We even find conspicuous mention made of one of the most important municipal officers of Ephesus, the “town-clerk” (q.v.) (), or keeper of the records, whom we know from other sources to have been a person of great influence and responsibility. It is remarkable how all these political and religious characteristics of Ephesus, which appear in the sacred narrative, are illustrated by inscriptions and coins. An , or state-paper office, is mentioned on an inscription in Chishull. The frequently appears; so also the and . Sometimes these words are combined in the same inscription; see, for instance, Bockh, Corp. Inscr. 2999, 2994, 2996. The later coins of Ephesus are full of allusions to the worship of Diana in various aspects. The word (warden, A.V. “worshipper”) is of frequent occurrence. That which is given last below has also the word (proconsul, A.V. “deputy”); it exhibits an image of the temple, and, bearing as it does the name and head of Nero, it must have been struck about the time of Paul’s stay in Ephesus. The one immediately preceding it bears the name (Cusinius) of the acting (“town-clerk”) at the time.

5. The Asiarchs. Public games were connected with the worship of Diana at Ephesus. The month of May was sacred to her. The uproar mentioned in the Acts very probably took place at this season. Paul was certainly at Ephesus about that time of the year (1Co 16:8), and Demetrius might well be peculiarly sensitive if he found his trade failing at the time of greatest concourse. However this may be, the Asiarchs (, A.V. “chiefs of Asia”) were present (Act 19:31). These were officers appointed, after the manner of the aediles at Rome, to preside over the games which were held in different parts of the province of Asia, just as other provinces had their Galatarchs, Lyciarchs, etc. Various cities would require the presence of these officers in turn. In the account of Polycarp’s martyrdom at Smyrna (Hefele, Pat. Apost. page 286) an important part is played by the Asiarch Philip. It is a remarkable proof of the influence which Paul had gained at Ephesus that the asiarchs took his side in the disturbance. See Dr.Wordsworth’s note on Act 19:31. SEE ASIARCH.

6. Religion. Conspicuous at the head of the harbor of Ephesus was the great temple of Diana or Artemis, the tutelary divinity of the city. She was worshipped under the name of Artemis. There was more than one divinity which went by the name of Artemis, as the Arcadian Artemis, the Taurian Artemis, as well as the Ephesian Artemis. (See Dougtsei Analect. 2:91; Miinter, Relig. d. Karthag. page 53.) Her worship in this instance was said to have originated in an image that fell from heaven (, Act 19:35; comp. Clem. Alex. Protrept. page 14; Wetstein in loc.), and believed to have been an object of reverence from the earliest times (Pliny, 16:79). The material of which it was composed is disputed, whether ebony, cedar, or otherwise (see Spanheim, ad Callim. Dian. verse 239). She was represented as many-breasted (, multimamia, see Gronovii Thesaur. 7; Zorn, Biblioth. Antiq. 1:439 sq.; Creuzer, Symbol. 2:176 sq.), although different explanations are given of her figure in this respect. The following is the description given by Mr. Falkener (Ephesus, pages 290, 291) of an antique statue of the Ephesian Diana now in the Naples Museum: “The circle round her head denotes the nimbus of her glory; the griffins inside of which express its brilliancy. In her breast are the twelve signs of the zodiac, of which those seen in front are the ram, bull, twins, crab, and lion; they are divided by the hours. Her necklace is composed of acorns, the primeval food of man. Lions are on her arms to denote her power, and her hands are stretched out to show that she is ready to receive all who come to her. Her body is covered with various beasts and monsters, as sirens, sphinxes, and griffins, to show she is the source of nature, the mother of all things. Her head, hands, and feet are of bronze, while the rest of the statue is of alabaster, to denote the ever-varying light and shade of the moon’s figure… . Like Rhea, she was crowned with turrets, to denote her dominion over terrestrial objects.” It will be seen, from the figure given, that this last differed materially from the Diana, sister of Apollo, whose attributes are the bow, the quiver, the girt-up robe, and the hound; whose person is a model of feminine strength, ease, and grace, and whose delights were in the pursuits of the chase. SEE DIANA.

Around the image of the goddess was erected, according to Callimachus (Hymn. in Dian. 248), her large and splendid temple. This building was raised (about B.C. 500) on immense substructions, in consequence of the swampy nature of the ground. The earlier temple, which had been begun before the Persian war, was burnt down in the night when Alexander the: Great was born (B.C. 355), by an obscure person of the name of Eratostratus, who thus sought to transmit. his name to posterity (Strabo, 14:640; Plutarch, Alex. 3; Solin, 43; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. 2:27); and, as it seemed somewhat unaccountable that the goddess should permit a place which redounded so much to her honor to be thus recklessly destroyed, it was given out that Diana was so engaged with Olympias in aiding to bring Alexander into the world that she had no time nor thought for any other concern. At a subsequent period Alexander made an offer to rebuild the temple, provided he were allowed to inscribe his name on the front, which the Ephesians refused. Aided, however, by the whole of Asia Minor, they succeeded in erecting a still more magnificent temple, which the ancients have lavishly praised and placed among the’ seven wonders of the world. It took two hundred and twenty years to complete. Pliny (Hist. Nat. 36:21), who has given a description of it, says it was 425 feet in length, 220 broad, and supported by 127 columns, each of which had been contributed by some prince, and were 60 feet high; 36 of them were richly carved. Chersiphron, the architect, presided over the undertaking, and, being ready to lay violent hands on himself in consequence of his difficulties, was restrained; by the command of the goddess, who appeared to hint during the night, assuring him that she herself had accomplished that which had brought him to despair. The altar was the work of Praxiteles. The famous sculptor Scopas is said by Pliny to have chiselled one of the columns. Apelles, a native of the city, contribated a splendid picture of Alexander the Great.

The rights of sanctuary, to the extent of a stadium in all directions round the temple, were also conceded, which, in consequence of abuse, the emperor Tiberius abolished. The temple was built of cedar, cypress, white marble, and even gold, with which it glittered (Spanh. Observat. in Hymn. in Dian. 353). Costly and magnificent offerings of various kinds were made to the .goddess and treasured in the temple, such as paintings, statues, etc., the value of which almost exceeded computation. The fame of the temple, of the goddess, and of the city itself, was spread not only through Asia, but the world, a celebrity which was enhanced and diffused the more readily because sacred games were practiced there, which called competitors and spectators from every country. In style, too, this famous structure constituted an epoch in Greek art (Vitruv. 4:1), since it was here first that the graceful Ionic order was perfected. The magnificence of this sanctuary was a proverb throughout the civilized world (Philo Byz. Spect. Mund. 7). All these circumstances give increased force to the architectural allegory in the great epistle which Paul wrote in this place (1Co 3:9-17), to the passages where imagery of this kind is used in the epistles addressed to Ephesus (Eph 2:19-22; 1Ti 3:15; 1Ti 6:19; 2Ti 2:19-20), and to the words spoken to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (Act 20:32). The temple was frequently used for the safe custody of treasure. Of more questionable character was the privilege which, in common with some other Greek temples, it enjoyed of an asylum, within the limits of which criminals were safe .from arrest (Strabo, 14:641; Plutarch, De cere al. c. 3; Apollon. Ephesians epist. 65). By Alexander this asylum was extended to a stadium, and by Mithridates somewhat further; fmark Antony nearly doubled the distance; but the abuses hence arising became so mischievous, that Augustus was compelled to abolish the privilege, or at least restrict it to its ancient boundary. Among his other enormities, Nero is said to have despoiled the temple of Diana of much of its treasure. It continued to conciliate no small portion of respect till it was finally burnt by the Goths in the reign of Gallienus. (See Hirt, Der Tempel der Diana zu Ephesus, Berlin, 1809.)

The chief points connected with the uproar at Ephesus in the case of Paul (Act 19:23-41) are mentioned in the articles DIANA SEE DIANA and PAUL SEE PAUL ; but the following details must be added. In consequence of this devotion, the city of Ephesus was called (Act 19:35) or ” warden” of Diana (see Van Dale, Dissert. page 309; Wolf and Kuinol, in loc.). This was a recognized title applied in such cases, not only to individuals, but So communities. In the instance of Ephesus, the term is abundantly found both on coins and on inscriptions. Its neocorate was, in fact, as the “town-clerk” said, proverbial. Another consequence of the celebrity of Diana’s worship at Ephesus was that a large manufactory grew up there of portable shrines (, Act 19:24, the of Dionys. Halicarn, 2:2, and other writers), which strangers purchased. and devotees carried with them on journeys or set up in their louses. Of the manufacturers engaged in this business, perhaps Alexander the “coppersmith” ( , 2Ti 4:14) was one. The case of Demetrius the “silversmith” ( in the Acts) is explicit. He was alarmed for his trade when he saw the Gospel, under the preaching of Paul, gaining ground upon idolatry and superstition, and he spread a panic among the craftsmen of various grades, the (2Ti 4:24) or designers, and the (2Ti 4:25) or common workmen, if this is the distinction between them. (See Schmid, Templa Denmetrii argentei, Jena, 1695; Wilisch, v vett. Lips. 1716.) SEE DEMETRIUS.

6. Magical Arts. Among the distinguished natives of Ephesus in the ancient world may be mentioned Apelles and Parrhasius, rivals in the art of painting, Heraclitus, the man-hating philosopher, Hipponax, a satirical poet, Artemidorus, who wrote a history and description of the earth. The claims of Ephesus, however, to the praise of originality in the prosecution of the liberal arts are but inconsiderable, and it must be content with the dubious reputation of having excelled in the refinements of a voluptuous and artificial civilization. With culture of this kind, a practical belief in and a constant use of those arts which pretend to lay open the secrets of nature, and arm the hand of man with supernatural powers, have generally been found conjoined. Accordingly, the Ephesian multitude were addicted to sorcery; indeed, in the age of Jesus and his apostles, adepts in the occult sciences were numerous: they traveled from country to country, and were found in great numbers in Asia, deceiving the credulous multitude and profiting by their expectations. They were sometimes Jews, who referred their skill and even their forms of proceeding to Solomon, who is still regarded in the East as head or prince of magicians (Josephus, Ant. 8:2,5; Act 8:9; Act 13:6; Act 13:8). In Asia Minor Ephesus had a high reputation for magical arts (Ortlob, De Ephes. Libris combustis, Lips. 1708). This also comes conspicuously into view in Luke’s narrative (Act 19:11-20). The peculiar character of Paul’s miracles ( , Act 19:11) would seem to have been intended as antagonistic to the prevalent superstition. The books mentioned as being burned by their possessors in consequence of his teaching were doubtless books of magic. How extensively they were in use may be learned from the fact that “the price of them” was “fifty thousand pieces of silver” (more than $30,000). Very celebrated were the Ephesian letters ( ), which appear to have been a sort of magical formulae written on paper or parchment, designed to be fixed as amulets on different parts of the body. such as the hands and the head (Plut. Sym. 7; Lakemacher, Obs. Philol. 2:126; Deyling, Observ. 3:355). Erasmus (Adag. Cent. 2:578) says that they were certain signs or marks which rendered their possessor victorious in every thing. Eustathius (ad Hom. Odys. 10:694) states an opinion that Croesus, when on his funeral pile, was very much benefited by the use of them; and that when a Milesian and an Ephesian were wrestling in the Olympic games, the former could gain no advantage, as the latter had Ephesian letters bound round his heel; but, these being discovered and removed, he lost his superiority, and was thrown thirty times. The faith in these mystic syllables continued, more or less, till the sixth century (see the Life of Alexander of Tralles, in Smith’s Dict. of Class. Biog. s.v.). We should enter on doubtful ground if we were to speculate on the Gnostic and other errors which grew up at Ephesus in the later apostolic age, and which are foretold in the address at Miletus, and indicated in the epistle to the Ephesians, and more distinctly in the epistles to Timothy. SEE CURIOUS ARTS.

7. Modern Remains. The ruins of Ephesus lie two short days’ journey from Smyrna, in proceeding from which towards the south-east the traveler passes the pretty village of Sedekuy; and two hours and a half onwards he comes to the ruined village of Danizzi, on a wide, solitary, uncultivated plain, beyond which several burial-grounds may be observed; near one of these, on an eminence, are the supposed ruins of Ephesus, consisting of shattered walls, in which some pillars, architraves, and fragments of marble have been built. The soil of the plain appears rich. It is covered with a rank, burnt-up vegetation, and is everywhere deserted and solitary, though bordered by picturesque mountains. A few corn-fields are scattered along the site of the ancient city, which is marked by some large masses of shapeless ruins and stone walls. Towards the sea extends the ancient port, a pestilential marsh. Along the slope of the mountain and over the plain are scattered fragments of masonry and detached ruins, but nothing can now be fixed upon as the great temple of Diana. There are some broken columns and capitals of the Corinthian order of white marble: there are also ruins of a theater, consisting of some circular seats and numerous arches, supposed to be the one in which Paul was preaching when interrupted by shouts of “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” The ruins of this theater present a wreck of immense grandeur, and the original must have been of the largest and most imposing dimensions. Its form alone can now be spoken of, for every seat is removed, and the proscenium is a hill of ruins. A splendid circus (Fellows’s Reports, page 275) or stadium remains tolerably entire, and there are numerous piles of buildings, seen alike at Pergamus and Troy as well as here, by some called gymnasia, by others temples; by others again, with more propriety, palaces. They all came with the Roman conquest. No one but a Roman emperor could have conceived such structures. In Italy they have parallels in Adrian’s villa near Tivoli, and perhaps in the pile upon the Palatine. Many other walls remain to show the extent of the buildings of the city, but no inscription or ornament is to be found, cities having been built out of this quarry of worked marble. The ruins of the adjoining town, which arose about four hundred years ago, are entirely composed of materials from Ephesus. There are a few huts within these ruins (about a mile and a half from Ephesus), which still retain the name of the parent city, Asaluk a Turkish word, which is associated with the same idea as Ephesus, meaning the City of the Moon (Fellows). A church dedicated to St. John is thought to have stood near, if not on the site of the present mosque. Arundell (Discoveries, 2:253) conjectures that the gate, called the Gate of Persecution, and large masses of brick wall which lie beyond it, are parts of this celebrated church, which was fortified during the great Council of Ephesus. The tomb of St. John was in or under his church, and the Greeks have a tradition of a sacred dust arising every year, on his festival, from the tomb, possessed of miraculous virtues: this dust they term manna. Not far from the tomb of St. John was that of Timothy. The tomb of Mary and the seven (boys, as the Synaxaria calls the Seven Sleepers) are found in an adjoining hill. At the back of the mosque, on the hill, is the sunk ground-plan of a small church, still much venerated by the Greeks. The sites of two others are shown at Asaluk. There is also a building, called the Prison of St. Paul, constructed of large stones without cement. The situation of the temple is doubtful, but it probably stood where certain large masses remain on the low ground, full in view of the theater. The disappearance of the temple may easily be accounted for, partly by the rising of the soil, and partly by the incessant use of its materials for medieval buildings. Some of its columns are said to be in St. Sophia at Constantinople, and even in the cathedrals of Italy.

Though Ephesus presents few traces of human life, and little but scattered and mutilated remains of its ancient grandeur, yet the environs, diversified as they are with hill and dale, and not scantily supplied with wood and water, present many features of great beauty. Arundell (2:244) enumerates a great variety of trees, which he saw in the neighborhood, among which may be specified groves of myrtle near Ephesus. He also found heath in abundance, of two varieties, and saw there the common fern, which he met with in no other part of Asia Minor. Dr. Chandler (page 150, 4to) gives a striking description of Ephesus, as he found it on his visit in 1764: “Its population consisted of a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility, the representatives of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their greatness some the substructure of the glorious edifices which they raised, some beneath the vaults of the stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions; and some in the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchers which received their ashes. Such are the present citizens of Ephesus, and such is the condition to which that renowned city has been reduced. It was a ruinous place when the emperor Justinian filled Constantinople with its statues, and raised the church of St. Sophia on its columns. Its streets are obscured and overgrown. A herd of goats was driven to it for shelter from the sun at noon, and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult its silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theater and of the stadium. The pomp of its heathen worship is no longer remembered; and Christianity, which was then nursed by apostles, and fostered by general councils, barely lingers on, in an existence hardly visible.” However much the Church at Ephesus may (Rev 2:2), in its earliest days, have merited praise for its “works, labor, and patience,” yet it appears soon to have “left its first love,” and to have received in vain the admonition “Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove: thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” If any repentance was produced by this solemn warning, its effects were not durable, and the place has long since offered an evidence of the truth of prophecy, and the certainty of the divine threatenings, as well as a melancholy subject for thought to the contemplative Christian. Its fate is that of the once flourishing seven churches of Asia: its fate is that of the entire country a garden has become a desert. Busy centers of civilization, spots where the refinements and delights of the age were collected, are now a prey to silence, destruction, and death. Consecrated first of all to the purposes of idolatry, Ephesus next had Christian temples almost rivaling the pagan in splendor, wherein the image of the great Diana lay prostrate before the cross; and, after the lapse of some centuries, Jesus gave place to Mohammed, and the crescent glittered on the dome of the recently Christian church. A few more scores of years, and Ephesus had neither temple, cross, crescent, nor city, but was 6a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.” Even the sea has retired from the scene of devastation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up ships laden with merchandise from every part of the known world. (See Herod. 1:26; 2:148; Livy, 1:45; Pausanias, 7:2. 4; Philo Byz. Deu 7:1-26 Orb. Mirac.; Creuzer, Symbol. 2:13; Hassel, Erdbeschr. 2:182.)

7. Literature. The site of ancient Ephesus has been visited and examined by many travelers during the last 200 years, and descriptions, more or less copious, have been given by Pococke, Tournefort, Spon and Wheler, Chandler, Poujoulat, Prokesch, Beaujour, Schubert, Arundell (Seven Churches, Lond. 1828, page 26), Fellows (Asia Minor, Lond. 1839, page 274), and Hamilton. The fullest accounts are, among the older travellers, in Chandler (Travels, Oxford, 1775, page 131), and, among the more recent, in Hamilton (Researches, Lond. 1842, 2:22). Some views are given in the second volume of the Ionian Antiquities, published by the Dilettanti Society. Leake, in his Asia Minor (Lond. 1824, pages 258, 346), has a discussion on the dimensions and style of the temple. In Kiepert’s Hellas is a map, more or less conjectural, the substance of which will be found in Smith’s Dict. of Class. Geog. s.v. Ephesus. The latest and most complete work is Falkener’s Ephesus and the Temple of Diana (London, 1862, 8vo). A railway now renders Ephesus accessible from Smyrna (Pressense, Land of Gospel, page 215). To the works above referred to must be added Perry, De rebus Ephesiorum (Gott. 1837), a slight sketch; Guhl, Ephesiaca (Berl. 1843), a very elaborate work, although his plans are mostly from Kiepert; Hemsen’s Paulus (Gott. 1830), which contains a good chapter on Ephesus; Biscoe, On the Acts (Oxf. 1829), pages 274- 285; Mr. Akerman’s paper on the Coins of Ephesus in the Trans. of the Numismatic Soc. 1841; Gronovius, Antiq. Graec. 7:387-401; and an article by Ampere in the Rev. des Deux Mondes for January 1842. Other monographs are Anon. Acta Pauli cum Ephesiis (Helmst. 1768); Epinus, De duplici bapt. discip. Ephesinor. (Altorf, 1719); Benner, De bapt. Ephesiorum in nonzen Christi (Giess. 1733); Bircherode, De cultu Diance Ephes. (Hafn. 1723); Conrad, Acta Pauli Ephes. (Jena, 1710); Deyling, De tumultu a Demetrio (in his Obss. sacr. in, 362 sq.); Lederlin, De templis Diance Ephesiorum (Argent. 1714); Schurzfleish, De literis Ephesior. (Viteb. 1698); Siber, De Ephesiorum (Viteb. 1685); Wallen, Acta Pauli Ephes. (Grybh. 1783); Stickel, De Ephesiis literis linguae Semiticae vindicandis (Jeh. 1860). SEE EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO.

Ephesus, General Council Of.

The third oecumenical council, convoked by the emperor Theodosius II, was held at Ephesus in 431, upon the controversy raised by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who objected to the application of the title of to the Virgin Mary. For the circumstances which led to the convocation of this council, see the articles NESTORIUS SEE NESTORIUS , NESTORIANS SEE NESTORIANS , PELAGIUS SEE PELAGIUS . Celestine, the pope, not seeing fit to attend in person, sent three legates, Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, a priest. Among the first who arrived at the council was Nestorius, with a numerous body of followers, and accompanied by Ireneus, a nobleman, his friend and protector. Cyril of Alexandria also, and Juvenal of Jerusalem came, accompanied by about fifty of the Egyptian bishops; Memnon of Ephesus had brought together about forty of the bishops within his jurisdiction; and altogether more than two hundred bishops were present. Candidianus, the commander of the forces in Ephesus, attended, by order of the emperor, to keep peace and order; but by his conduct he greatly favored the party of Nestorius. The day appointed for the opening of the council was June 7th; but John of Antioch, and the other bishops from Syria and the East not having arrived, it was delayed till the 22d of the same month. At the first session of the council (June 22), before the Greek and Syrian bishops had arrived, Cyril and the bishops present condemned the doctrines of Nestorius, and deposed and excommunicated him. This sentence was signed by one hundred and ninety-eight bishops, according to Tillemont, and by more than two hundred according to Fleury; it was immediately made known to Nestorius, and published in the public places. At the same time, notice of it was sent to the clergy and people of Constantinople, with a recommendation to them to secure the property of the Church for the successor of the deprived Nestorius. As soon, however, as Nestorius had received notice of this sentence, he protested against it, and all that had passed at the council, and forwarded to the emperor an account of what had been done, setting forth that Cyril and Memnon, refusing to wait for John and the other bishops, had hurried matters on in a tumultuous and irregular way. On the 27th of June twenty-seven Syrian bishops arrived, chose John of Antioch for their president, and deposed Cyril in their turn. In August, count John, who had been sent by Theodosius, arrived at Ephesus, and directed the bishops of both synods to meet him on the following day.

Accordingly, John of Antioch and Nestorius attended with their party, and Cyril with the orthodox; but immediately a dispute arose between them the latter contending that Nestorius should not be present, while the former wished to exclude Cyril. Upon this, the count, to quiet the dispute, gave both Cyril and Nestorius into custody, and then endeavored, but in vain, to reconcile the two parties. And thus matters seemed as far from a settlement as ever. The emperor at last permitted the fathers of the council to send to him eight deputies, while the Orientals or Syrians, on their part, sent as many. The place of meeting was Chalcedon, whither the emperor proceeded, and spent five days in listening to the arguments on. both sides; and here the Council of Ephesus may, in. fact, be said to have terminated. Nothing is known of what passed at Chalcedon, but the event shows that Theodosius sided with the Catholics, since upon his return to Constantinople he ordered, by a letter, the Catholic deputies to come there, and to proceed to consecrate a bishop in the place of Nestorius, whom he had already ordered to leave Ephesus, and to confine himself to his monastery near Antioch. Afterwards he directed that all the bishops at the council, including Cyril and Memnon, should return to their respective dioceses. The judgment of this council was at once approved by the whole Western Church, and by far the greater part of the East, and was subsequently confirmed by the (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, consisting of six hundred and thirty bishops. Even, John of Antioch and the Eastern bishops very soon acknowledged it. But Nestorius protested to the last that he did not hold the heretical opinions anathematized by the council. SEE NESTORIUS.

Of the other councils of Ephesus, the following are all that need be mentioned: 1, in 245 (?), against the Patropassian Noetus; 2, in 400, under Chrysostom, where Heraclidus was consecrated bishop of Ephesus, and six simoniacal bishops deposed; and the ROBBER COUNCIL (see next article). Landon, Manual of Councils, page 235; Mansi, Conc. 4:1212, 1320, et al.; Gieseler, Ch. History, 88; Neander, Church Hist. 2:468 sq.; Murd. Mosheim, Church Hist. 1:358; Palmer, On the Church, 1:385 sq.; Cunningham, Historical Theology, 1:328 sq.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2:161 sq. ; Smith, Tables of Church History; Christian Examiner, 54:49.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Ephesus

the capital of proconsular Asia, which was the western part of Asia Minor. It was colonized principally from Athens. In the time of the Romans it bore the title of “the first and greatest metropolis of Asia.” It was distinguished for the Temple of Diana (q.v.), who there had her chief shrine; and for its theatre, which was the largest in the world, capable of containing 50,000 spectators. It was, like all ancient theatres, open to the sky. Here were exhibited the fights of wild beasts and of men with beasts. (Comp. 1 Cor. 4:9; 9:24, 25; 15:32.)

Many Jews took up their residence in this city, and here the See ds of the gospel were sown immediately after Pentecost (Acts 2:9; 6:9). At the close of his second missionary journey (about A.D. 51), when Paul was returning from Greece to Syria (18:18-21), he first visited this city. He remained, however, for only a short time, as he was hastening to keep the feast, probably of Pentecost, at Jerusalem; but he left Aquila and Priscilla behind him to carry on the work of spreading the gospel.

During his third missionary journey Paul reached Ephesus from the “upper coasts” (Acts 19:1), i.e., from the inland parts of Asia Minor, and tarried here for about three years; and so successful and abundant were his labours that “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (19:10). Probably during this period the seven churches of the Apocalypse were founded, not by Paul’s personal labours, but by missionaries whom he may have sent out from Ephesus, and by the influence of converts returning to their homes.

On his return from his journey, Paul touched at Miletus, some 30 miles south of Ephesus (Acts 20:15), and sending for the presbyters of Ephesus to meet him there, he delivered to them that touching farewell charge which is recorded in Acts 20:18-35. Ephesus is not again mentioned till near the close of Paul’s life, when he writes to Timothy exhorting him to “abide still at Ephesus” (1 Tim. 1:3).

Two of Paul’s companions, Trophimus and Tychicus, were probably natives of Ephesus (Acts 20:4; 21:29; 2 Tim. 4:12). In his second epistle to Timothy, Paul speaks of Onesiphorus as having served him in many things at Ephesus (2 Tim. 1:18). He also “sent Tychicus to Ephesus” (4:12), probably to attend to the interests of the church there. Ephesus is twice mentioned in the Apocalypse (1:11; 2:1).

The apostle John, according to tradition, spent many years in Ephesus, where he died and was buried.

A part of the site of this once famous city is now occupied by a small Turkish village, Ayasaluk, which is regarded as a corruption of the two Greek words, hagios theologos; i.e., “the holy divine.”

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Ephesus

Chief city of the Ionian confederacy and capital of the Roman province “Asia” (Mysia, Lydia, Caria), on the S. side of the plain of Cayster, and partly on the heights of Prion and Coressus, opposite the island of Samos. A leading scene of Paul’s ministry (Acts 18; 19; 20); also one of the seven churches addressed in the Apocalypse (Rev 1:11; Rev 2:1), and the center from from whence John superintended the adjoining churches (Eusebius, 3:23). Ephesus, though she was commended for patient labors for Christ’s name’s sake, is reproved for having “left her first love.” The port was called Panormus. Commodious roads connected this great emporium of Asia with the interior (“the upper coasts,” i.e. the Phrygian table lands, Act 19:1); also one on the N. to Smyrna, another on the S. to Miletus, whereby the Ephesian elders traveled when summoned by Paul to the latter city.

On a N.E. hill stands the church Ayasaluk, corrupted from hagios theologos, “the holy divine,” John, Timothy, and the Virgin Mary who was committed by the Lord to John (Joh 19:26), were said to have been buried there. It was the port where Paul sailed from Corinth, on his way to Syria (Act 18:19-22). Thence too he probably sailed on a short visit to Corinth; also thence to Macedonia (Act 19:21-27; Act 20:1; compare 1Ti 1:3; 2Ti 4:12; 2Ti 4:20). (See 1 CORINTHIANS.) Originally colonized by the hardy Atticans under Androclus, son of Codrus, it subsequently fell through the enervation of its people under Lydian and Persian domination successively; then under Alexander the Great, and finally under the Romans when these formed their province of Asia (129 B.C.).

A proconsul or “deputy” ruled Asia. In Act 19:38 the plural is for the singular. He was on circuit, holding the assizes then in Ephesus; as is implied, “the law is open,” margin “the court days are (now being) kept.” Besides a senate there was a popular assembly such as met in the theater, the largest perhaps in the world, traceable still on mount Prion (Act 19:29). The “town clerk” had charge of the public records, opened state letters, and took notes of the proceedings in the assembly. His appeal, quieting the people, notices that Paul was “not a blasphemer of the Ephesian goddess,” a testimony to Paul’s tact and wisdom in preaching Christ. The friendly warning of the Asiarchs to Paul, not to venture into the theater, implies how great an influence the apostle had gained at Ephesus. (See ASIARCHS.)

Besides being famed as the birthplace of the two painters Apelles and Parrhasius, and the philosopher Heraclitus, Ephesus was notorious for its magical arts and amulets of parchment with inscribed incantations (Ephesia grammata), valued at enormous prices (50,000 pieces of silver), yet freely given up to the flame when their possessors received a living faith (Act 19:19). In undesigned coincidence with Acts, Paul writing to Timothy (2Ti 3:13) says “seducers (goeetees, “conjurors”) shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” The “special miracles” which God wrought by the hands of Paul were exactly suited to conquer the magicians on their own ground: handkerchiefs and aprons from his body brought as a cure to the sick; evil spirits cast out by him; and when exorcists imitated him, the evil spirits turning on them and rending them.

The Diana of Ephesus, instead of the graceful Grecian goddess of the chase, was a mummy-shaped body with many breasts, ending in a point, and with the head of a female with mural crown, and hands with a bar of metal in each; underneath was a rude block. An aerolite probably gave the idea “the image that fell from heaven.” After frequent burnings, the last building of her temple took 220 years. (See DIANA.) Some read Pliny’s statement, “the columns were 120, seven of them the gifts of kings”; the diameter of each is six feet, the height 60 feet, according to Ward’s measurement. The external pillars according to Wood’s arrangement are 88; the whole number, internal and external, 120. The glory of Ephesus was to be “a worshipper of the great goddess” (see margin), literally, a caretaker, warden, or apparitor of the temple (neokoros), and the silversmiths had a flourishing trade in selling portable models of the shrine.

Perhaps Alexander the “coppersmith” had a similar business. The “craftsmen” were the designers, the “workmen” ordinary laborers (Act 19:24-25). The imagery of a temple naturally occurs in 1Co 3:9-17 written here, also in 1Ti 3:15; 1Ti 6:19; 2Ti 2:19-20, written to Ephesus; compare also Act 20:32. Demetrius would be especially sensitive at that time when Diana’s sacred month of May was just about to attract the greatest crowds to her, for 1Co 16:8 shows Paul was there about that time, and it is probable the uproar took place then; hence we find the Asiarchs present at this time (Act 19:31).

Existing ancient coins illustrate the terms found in Acts, “deputy,” “town clerk,” “worshipper of Diana.” The address at Miletus shows that the Ephesian church had then its bishop presbyters. Paul’s companions, Trophimus certainly and Tychicus possibly, were natives of Ephesus (Act 20:4; Act 21:29; 2Ti 4:12.) Also Onesiphorus (2Ti 1:16-18; 2Ti 4:19), Hymeneus and Alexander, Hermogenes and Phygellus, of Ephesus, were among Paul’s opponents (1Ti 1:20; 2Ti 1:15; 2Ti 4:14).

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

EPHESUS

Ephesus was the chief city of the Roman province of Asia (part of present-day Turkey). The church in Ephesus probably began through the work of Priscilla and Aquila, whom Paul left in Ephesus after visiting the city briefly at the end of his second missionary journey (Act 18:18-21). (For map of the region see ASIA.)

Early developments

An important visitor during the early days of the Ephesian church was Apollos, a Jewish teacher from Alexandria in Egypt. Though eloquent, Apollos was lacking in the knowledge of certain Christian teachings, till Priscilla and Aquila taught him more accurately (Act 18:24-28). The time of the churchs greatest growth came when Paul returned at the beginning of his third missionary journey and spent three years in the city (Act 20:31). During this time the zealous Ephesian converts evangelized most of the province of Asia (Act 19:8-10).

The people of Ephesus were well known for their superstition and magic, and some dramatic events accompanied the peoples response to Pauls preaching (Act 19:11-20). The city was considered to be the home of the goddess Artemis (or Diana) and contained a magnificent temple built in her honour (Act 19:27-28; Act 19:35). As the people of Ephesus turned in increasing numbers from the worship of Artemis to faith in Jesus, tensions arose in the city. The silversmiths who made small household shrines of the goddess found themselves going out of business and stirred up a riot. It took the city authorities several hours to restore order (Act 19:23-41).

Some time during his three years in Ephesus, Paul wrote the letter we know as First Corinthians (1Co 16:8-9; 1Co 16:19). While in Ephesus Paul met violent opposition and suffered physical harm. On one occasion he almost lost his life (1Co 15:32; 1Co 16:8-9; cf. 2Co 1:8-9). Ephesus was no doubt the scene of some of the sufferings that Paul later records in 2Co 11:23-29, and possibly he suffered one of his imprisonments there.

Later difficulties

Before leaving Ephesus at the end of his third missionary journey, Paul warned that false teachers would trouble the church (Act 20:17; Act 20:28-31). This proved to be so, and Pauls letter to the Ephesians, which he wrote during his first imprisonment in Rome, deals with some of the wrong ideas that had become widespread in and around Ephesus (see EPHESIANS, LETTER TO THE).

After his release from Rome, Paul revisited the church in Ephesus to try to correct the wrong teaching. When he moved on, he left Timothy behind to continue corrective teaching. He also wrote Timothy two letters to help him in this task (1Ti 1:3-7; 1Ti 6:3-5; 2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 2:14-16). The false teaching that the apostle John condemned in his letters (written towards the end of the first century) was also centred in Ephesus (1Jn 2:18-22; 1Jn 4:1; 2Jn 1:9-11).

Later the Ephesian church was troubled by another group of false teachers, the Nicolaitans. These people encouraged Christians to demonstrate their freedom by eating food that had been offered to idols and by engaging in sexual immorality (Rev 2:2; Rev 2:6; cf. Rev 2:14-15).

Unfortunately, the Ephesian Christians had become so concerned with opposing false teaching year after year, that in the process their love for Christ had lost its original warmth. They had become harsh, critical and self-satisfied. God warned them that if they did not change and regain their original spirit of love, he would act against them in judgment and bring their church to an end. But those who triumphed over these attitudes would enjoy the fulness of eternal life (Rev 2:1-7).

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Ephesus

EPHESUS.The capital of the Roman province Asia; a large and ancient city at the mouth of the river Cayster, and about 3 miles from the open sea. The origin of the name, which is native and not Greek, is unknown. It stood at the entrance to one of the four clefts in the surrounding hills. It is along these valleys that the roads through the central plateau of Asia Minor pass. The chief of these was the route up the Mander as far as the Lycus, its tributary, then along the Lycus towards Apamea. It was the most important avenue of civilization in Asia Minor under the Roman Empire. Miletus had been in earlier times a more important harbour than Ephesus, but the track across from this main road to Ephesus was much shorter than the road to Miletus, and was over a pass only 600 ft. high. Consequently Ephesus replaced Miletus before and during the Roman Empire, especially as the Mander had silted up so much as to spoil the harbour at the latter place. It became the great emporium for all the trade N. of Mt. Taurus.

Ephesus was on the main route from Rome to the East, and many side roads and sea-routes converged at it (Act 19:21; Act 20:1; Act 20:17, 1Ti 1:3, 2Ti 4:12). The governors of the provinces in Asia Minor had always to land at Ephesus. It was an obvious centre for the work of St. Paul, as influences from there spread over the whole province (Act 19:10). Corinth was the next great station on the way to Rome, and communication between the two places was constant. The ship in Act 18:19, bound from Corinth for the Syrian coast, touched first at Ephesus.

Besides Paul, Tychicus (Eph 6:21 f.) and Timothy (according to 1Ti 1:3, 2Ti 4:9), John Mark (Col 4:10, 1Pe 5:13), and the writer of the Apocalypse (Rev 1:11; Rev 2:1) were acquainted with Asia or Ephesus.

The harbour of Ephesus was kept large enough and deep enough only by constant attention. The alluvial deposits were (and are) so great that, when once the Roman Empire had ceased to hold sway, the harbour became gradually smaller and smaller, so that now Ephesus is far away from the sea. Even in St. Pauls time there appear to have been difficulties about navigating the channel, and ships avoided Ephesus except when loading or unloading was necessary (cf. Act 20:16). The route by the high lands, from Ephesus to the East, was suitable for foot passengers and light traffic, and was used by St. Paul (Act 19:1; probably also Act 16:6). The alternative was the main road through Coloss and Laodicea neither of which St. Paul ever visited (Col 2:1).

In the open plain, about 5 miles from the sea, S. of the river, stands a little hill which has always been a religious centre. Below its S. W. slope was the temple sacred to Artemis (see Diana of the Ephesians). The Greek city Ephesus was built at a distance of 12 miles S. W. of this hill. The history of the town turns very much on the opposition between the free Greek spirit of progress and the slavish submission of the Oriental population to the goddess. Crsus the Lydian represented the predominance of the latter over the former, but Lysimachus (b.c. 295) revived the Greek influence. Ephesus, however, was always proud of the position of Warden of the Temple of Artemis (Act 19:35). The festivals were thronged by crowds from the whole of the province of Asia. St. Paul, whose residence in Ephesus lasted 2 years and 3 months (Act 19:8; Act 19:10), or roughly expressed, 3 years (Act 20:31). at first incurred no opposition from the devotees of the goddess, because new foreign religions did not lessen the influence of the native goddess; but when his teaching proved prejudicial to the money interests of the people who made a living out of the worship, he was at once bitterly attacked. Prior to this occurrence, his influence had caused many of the famous magicians of the place to burn their books (Act 19:13-19). The riot of 19:32 was no mere passing fury of a section of the populace. The references to Ephesus in the Epistles show that the opposition to Christianity there was as long-continued as it was virulent (1Co 15:32; 1Co 16:9, 2Co 1:8; 2Co 1:10).

The scene in Act 19:23 ff. derives some Illustration from an account of the topography and the government of the city. The ruins of the theatre are large, and it has been calculated that it could hold 24,000 people. It was on the western slope of Mt. Pion, and overlooked the harbour. The Asiarchs (see Asiarch), who were friendly to St. Paul, may have been present in Ephesus at that time on account of a meeting of their body (Act 19:31). The town-clerk or secretary of the city appears as a person of importance, and this is exactly in accordance with what is known of municipal affairs in such cities. The Empire brought decay of the influence of popular assemblies, which tended more and more to come into the hands of the officials, though the assembly at Ephesus was really the highest municipal authority (Act 19:39), and the Roman courts and the proconsuls (Act 19:38) were the final judicial authority in processes against individuals. The meeting of the assembly described in Acts was not a legal meeting. Legal meetings could be summoned only by the Roman officials, who had the power to call together the people when they pleased. The secretary tried to act as intermediary between the people and these officials, and save the people from trouble at their hands. The temple of Artemis which existed in St. Pauls day was of enormous size. Apart from religious purposes, it was used as a treasure-house: as to the precise arrangements for the charge of this treasure we are in ignorance.

There is evidence outside the NT also for the presence of Jews in Ephesus. The twelve who had been baptized with the baptism of John (Act 19:3) may have been persons who had emigrated to Ephesus before the mission of Jesus began. When St. Paul turned from the Jews to the population in general, he appeared, as earlier in Athens, as a lecturer in philosophy, and occupied the school of Tyrannus out of school hours. The earlier part of the day, beginning before dawn, he spent in manual labour. The actual foundation of Christianity in Ephesus may have been due to Priscilla and Aquila (Act 18:19).

Ephesian occurs as a variant reading in the Western text of Act 20:4 for the words of Asia, as applied to Tychicus and Trophimus. Trophimus was an inhabitant of Ephesus (Act 21:29), capital of Asia; but Tychicus was probably merely an Inhabitant of the province Asia; hence they are coupled under the only adjective applicable to both. It is hardly safe to infer from the fact that Tychicus bore the letter to the Colossians that he belonged to Coloss (province Asia); but it is possible that he did.

A. Souter.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Ephesus

The celebrated city to which Paul sent his Epistle. And one of the seven churches to whom the Lord Jesus sent his message. (See Act 19:1; Eph 1:1; Rev 2:1)

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Ephesus

efe-sus (, Ephesos, desirable): A city of the Roman province of Asia, near the mouth of the Cayster river, 3 miles from the western coast of Asia Minor, and opposite the island of Samos. With an artificial harbor accessible to the largest ships, and rivaling the harbor at Miletus, standing at the entrance of the valley which reaches far into the interior of Asia Minor, and connected by highways with the chief cities of the province, Ephesus was the most easily accessible city in Asia, both by land and sea. Its location, therefore, favored its religious, political and commercial development, and presented a most advantageous field for the missionary labors of Paul. The city stood upon the sloping sides and at the base of two hills, Prion and Coressus, commanding a beautiful view; its climate was exceptionally fine, and the soil of the valley was unusually fertile.

Tradition says that in early times near the place where the mother goddess of the earth was born, the Amazons built a city and a temple in which they might worship. This little city of the Amazons, bearing at different times the names of Samorna, Trachea, Ortygia and Ptelea, flourished until in the early Greek days it aroused the cupidity of Androclus, a prince of Athens. He captured it and made it a Greek city. Still another tradition says that Androclus was its founder. However, under Greek rule the Greek civilization gradually supplanted that of the Orientals, the Greek language was spoken in place of the Asiatic; and the Asiatic goddess of the temple assumed more or less the character of the Greek Artemis. Ephesus, therefore, and all that pertained to it, was a mixture of oriental and Greek Though the early history of the city is obscure, it seems that at different times it was in the hands of the Carians, the Leleges and Ionians; in the early historical period it was one of a league of twelve Ionfan cities. In 560 bc it came into the possession of the Lydians; 3 years later, in 557, it was taken by the Persians; and during the following years the Greeks and Persians were constantly disputing for its possession. Finally, Alexander the Great took it; and at his death it fell to Lysimachus, who gave it the name of Arsinoe, from his second wife. Upon the death of Attalus II (Philadelphus), king of Pergamos, it was bequeathed to the Roman Empire; and in 190, when the Roman province of Asia was formed, it became a part of it. Ephesus and Pergamos, the capital of Asia, were the two great rival cities of the province. Though Pergamos was the center of the Roman religion and of the government, Ephesus was the more accessible, the commercial center and the home of the native goddess Diana; and because of its wealth and situation it gradually became the chief city of the province. It is to the temple of Diana, however, that its great wealth and prominence are largely due. Like the city, it dates from the time of the Amazons, yet what the early temple was like we now have no means of knowing, and of its history we know little except that it was seven times destroyed by fire and rebuilt, each time on a scale larger and grander than before. The wealthy king Croesus supplied it with many of its stone columns, and the pilgrims from all the oriental world brought it of their wealth. In time the temple possessed valuable lands; it controlled the fishcries; its priests were the bankers of its enormous revenues. Because of its strength the people stored there their money for safe-keeping; and it became to the ancient world practically all that the Bank of England is to the modern world.

In 356 bc, on the very night when Alexander the Great was born, it was burned; and when he grew to manhood he offered to rebuild it at his own expense if his name might be inscribed upon its portals. This the priests of Ephesus were unwilling to permit, and they politely rejected his offer by saying that it was not fitting for one god to build a temple to another. The wealthy Ephesians themselves undertook its reconstruction, and 220 years passed before its final completion.

Not only was the temple of Diana a place of worship, and a treasure-house, but it was also a museum in which the best statuary and most beautiful paintings were preserved. Among the paintings was one by the famous Apelles, a native of Ephesus, representing Alexander the Great hurling a thunderbolt. It was also a sanctuary for the criminal, a kind of city of refuge, for none might be arrested for any crime whatever when within a bowshot of its walls. There sprang up, therefore, about the temple a village in which the thieves and murderers and other criminals made their homes. Not only did the temple bring vast numbers of pilgrims to the city, as does the Kaaba at Mecca at the present time, but it employed hosts of people apart from the priests and priestesses; among them were the large number of artisans who manufactured images of the goddess Diana, or shrines to sell to the visiting strangers.

Such was Ephesus when Paul on his 2nd missionary journey in Acts (Act 18:19-21) first visited the city, and when, on his 3rd journey (Act 19:8-10; Act 20:31), he remained there for two years preaching in the synagogue (Act 19:8, Act 19:10), in the school of Tyrannus (Act 19:9) and in private houses (Act 20:20). Though Paul was probably not the first to bring Christianity to Ephesus, for Jews had long lived there (Act 2:9; Act 6:9), he was the first to make progress against the worship of Diana. As the fame of his teachings was carried by the pilgrims to their distant homes, his influence extended to every part of Asia Minor. In time the pilgrims, with decreasing faith in Diana, came in fewer numbers; the sales of the shrines of the goddess fell off; Diana of the Ephesians was no longer great; a Christian church was rounded there and flourished, and one of its first leaders was the apostle John. Finally in 262 ad, when the temple of Diana was again burned, its influence had so far departed that it was never again rebuilt. Diana was dead. Ephesus became a Christian city, and in 341 ad a council of the Christian church was held there. The city itself soon lost its importance and decreased in population. The sculptured stones of its great buildings, which were no longer in use and were falling to ruins, were carried away to Italy, and especially to Constantinople for the great church of Saint Sophia. In 1308 the Turks took possession of the little that remained of the city, and deported or murdered its inhabitants. The Cayster river, overflowing its banks, gradually covered with its muddy deposit the spot where the temple of Diana had once stood, and at last its very site was forgotten.

The small village of Ayasaluk, 36 miles from Smyrna on the Aidin R.R., does not mark the site of the ancient city of Ephesus, yet it stands nearest to its ruins. The name Ayasaluk is the corruption of three Greek words meaning the Holy Word of God. Passing beyond the village one comes to the ruins of the old aqueduct, the fallen city walls, the so-called church of John or the baths, the Turkish fort which is sometimes called Paul’s prison, the huge theater which was the scene of the riot of Paul’s time, but which now, with its marble torn away, presents but a hole in the side of the hill Prion. In 1863 Mr. J.T. Wood, for the British Museum, obtained permission from the Turkish government to search for the site of the lost temple of Diana. During the eleven years of his excavations at Ephesus, $80,000 were spent, and few cities of antiquity have been more thoroughly explored. The city wall of Lysimachus was found to be 36,000 ft. in length, enclosing an area of 1,027 acres. It was 10 1/2 ft. thick, and strengthened by towers at intervals of 100 ft. The six gates which pierced the wall are now marked by mounds of rubbish. The sites and dimensions of the various public buildings, the streets, the harbor, and the foundations of many of the private houses were ascertained, and numerous inscriptions and sculptures and coins were discovered. Search, however, did not reveal the site of the temple until January 1, 1870, after six years of faithful work. Almost by accident it was then found in the valley outside the city walls, several feet below the present surface. Its foundation, which alone remained, enabled Mr. Wood to reconstruct the entire temple plan. The temple was built upon a foundation which was reached by a flight of ten steps. The building itself was 425 ft. long and 220 ft. wide; each of its 127 pillars which supported the roof of its colonnade was 60 ft. high; like the temples of Greece, its interior was open to the sky. For a further description of the temple, see Mr. Wood’s excellent book, Discoveries at Ephesus.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Ephesus

Fig. 176Ephesus

Ephesus, an old and celebrated city, capital of Ionia, one of the twelve Ionian cities in Asia Minor in the Mythic times. It lay on the river Cayster, not far from the coast of the Icarian Sea, between Smyrna and Miletus. It was also one of the most considerable of the Greek cities in Asia Minor; but while, about the epoch of the introduction of Christianity, the other cities declined, Ephesus rose more and more. It owed its prosperity in part to the favor of its governors, for Lysimachus named the city Arsinoe, in honor of his second wife, and Attalus Philadelphus furnished it with splendid wharfs and docks; in part to the favorable position of the place, which naturally made it the emporium of Asia on this side the Taurus. Under the Romans Ephesus was the capital not only of Ionia, but of the entire province of Asia, and bore the honorable title of the first and greatest metropolis of Asia. In the days of Paul Jews were found settled in the city in no inconsiderable number, and from them the Apostle collected a Christian community (Act 18:19; Act 19:1; Act 20:16), which, being fostered and extended by the hand of Paul himself, became the center of Christianity in Asia Minor. On leaving the city the Apostle left Timothy there (1Ti 1:3): at a later period, according to a tradition which prevailed extensively in ancient times, we find the Apostle John in Ephesus, where he employed himself most diligently for the spread of the Gospel, and where he not only died, at a very old age, but was buried, with Mary the mother of the Lord. In the book of Revelation (Rev 2:1) a favorable testimony is borne to the Christian churches at Ephesus.

The classic celebrity of this city is chiefly owing to its famous temple, and the goddess in whose honor it was built, namely, ‘Diana of the Ephesians.’ This goddess has been already noticed, and a figure given of her famous image at Ephesus [DIANA].

Around the image of the goddess was afterwards erected, according to Callimachus, a large and splendid temple. This temple was burnt down on the night in which Alexander was born, by an obscure person of the name of Eratostratus, who thus sought to transmit his name to posterity; and, as it seemed somewhat unaccountable that the goddess should permit a place which redounded so much to her honor to be thus recklessly destroyed, it was given out that Diana was so engaged with Olympias, in aiding to bring Alexander into the world, that she had no time nor thought for any other concern. At a subsequent period, Alexander made an offer to rebuild the temple, provided he was allowed to inscribe his name on the front, which the Ephesians refused. Aided, however, by the whole of Asia Minor, they succeeded in erecting a still more magnificent temple, which the ancients have lavishly praised and placed among the seven wonders of the world. It took two hundred and twenty years to complete. It was built of cedar, cypress, white marble, and even gold, with which it glittered. Costly and magnificent offerings of various kinds were made to the goddess, and treasured in the temple; such as paintings, statues, etc., the value of which almost exceeded computation. The fame of the temple, of the goddess, and of the city itself, was spread not only through Asia but the world, a celebrity which was enhanced and diffused the more readily because sacred games were practiced there, which called competitors and spectators from every country. Among his other enormities Nero is said to have despoiled the temple of Diana of much of its treasure. It continued to conciliate no small portion of respect, till it was finally burnt by the Goths in the reign of Gallienus. The ‘silver shrines’ of the Ephesian Artemis, mentioned in Act 19:24, have been already noticed [DEMETRIUS, 3].

Ephesus was celebrated for the constant use of those arts which pretend to lay open the secrets of nature, and arm the hand of man with supernatural powers, no less than for the refinements of a voluptuous and artificial civilization. Indeed, in the age of Jesus and his Apostles, adepts in the occult sciences were numerous: they traveled from country to country, and were found in great numbers in Asia, deceiving the credulous multitude and profiting by their expectations. They were sometimes Jews, who referred their skill and even their forms of proceeding to Solomon, who is still regarded in the East as head or prince of magicians (Act 8:9; Act 13:6; Act 13:8). In Asia Minor Ephesus had a high reputation for magical arts.

The books mentioned Act 19:19, were doubtless books of magic. How extensively they were in use may be learned from the fact that ‘the price of them’ was ‘fifty thousand pieces of silver.’ Very celebrated were the Ephesian letters, which appear to have been a sort of magical formula written on paper or parchment, designed to be fixed as amulets on different parts of the body, such as the hands and the head. Erasmus says that they were certain signs or marks which rendered their possessor victorious in everything.

The ruins of Ephesus lie two short days’ journey from Smyrna, in proceeding from which towards the south-east the traveler passes the pretty village of Sedekuy; and two hours and a half onwards he comes to the ruined village of Danizzi, on a wide, solitary, uncultivated plain, beyond which several burial-grounds may be observed; near one of these, on an eminence, are the supposed ruins of Ephesus, consisting of shattered walls, in which some pillars, architraves, and fragments of marble have been built. The soil of the plain appears rich. It is covered with a rank, burnt-up vegetation, and is everywhere deserted and solitary, though bordered by picturesque mountains. A few cornfields are scattered along the site of the ancient city, which is marked by some large masses of shapeless ruins and stone walls. Towards the sea extends the ancient port, a pestilential marsh. Along the slope of the mountain and over the plain are scattered fragments of masonry and detached ruins, but nothing can now be fixed upon as the great temple of Diana. There are some broken columns and capitals of the Corinthian order of white marble: there are also ruins of a theater, consisting of some circular seats and numerous arches, supposed to be the one in which Paul was preaching when interrupted by shouts of, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’ A splendid circus or stadium remains tolerably entire, and there are numerous piles of buildings seen alike at Pergamus and Troy as well as here, by some called gymnasia, by others temples; by others again, with more propriety, palaces. They all came with the Roman conquest. No one but a Roman emperor could have conceived such structures. In Italy they have parallels in Adrian’s villa near Tivoli, and perhaps in the pile upon the Palatine. Many other walls remain to show the extent of the buildings of the city, but no inscription or ornament is to be found, cities having been built out of this quarry of worked marble. The ruins of the adjoining town, which rose about four hundred years ago, are entirely composed of materials from Ephesus. There are a few huts within these ruins (about a mile and a half from Ephesus), which still retain the name of the parent city, Asalooka Turkish word, which is associated with the same idea as Ephesus, meaning the City of the Moon. A church dedicated to St. John is thought to have stood near, if not on the site of, the present mosque. The tomb of St. John was in or under his church.

Though Ephesus presents few traces of human life, and little but scattered and mutilated remains of its ancient grandeur, yet the environs, diversified as they are with hill and dale, and not scantily supplied with wood and water, present many features of great beauty.

When Dr. Chandler visited Ephesus in 1764, ‘Its population consisted of a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility, the representatives of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their greatnesssome the substructure of the glorious edifices which they raised; some beneath the vaults of the stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions; and some in the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchers which received their ashes. Such are the present citizens of Ephesus and such is the condition to which that renown city has been reduced. However much the Church at Ephesus may (Rev 2:2), in its earliest days, have merited praise for its ‘works, labor, and patience,’ yet it appears soon to have ‘left its first love.’ and to have received in vain the admonition’Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.’ If any repentance was produced by this solemn warning, its effects were not durable, and the place has long since afforded an evidence of the truth of prophecy, and the certainty of the divine threatenings, as well as a melancholy subject for thought to the contemplative Christian. Its fate is that of the once flourishing seven churches of Asia: its fate is that of the entire countrya garden has become a desert. Busy centers of civilization, spots where the refinements and delights of the age were collected, are now a prey to silence, destruction, and death. Consecrated first of all to the purposes of idolatry, Ephesus next had Christian temples almost rivaling the pagan in splendor, wherein the image of the great Diana lay prostrate before the cross; and, after the lapse of some centuries, Jesus gives place to Muhammad, and the crescent glittered on the dome of the recently Christian church. A few more scores of years, and Ephesus has neither temple, cross, crescent, nor city, but is ‘a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.’ Even the sea has retired from the scene of devastation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up ships laden with merchandise from every part of the known world.

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Ephesus

[Eph’esus]

A renowned city of Ionia, and in the time of the Romans the capital of the part called ‘the province of Asia,’ being the west portion of Asia Minor. Being near the sea it was a place of great commerce, and as the capital of the province it had constant intercourse with the surrounding towns. The celebrated temple of Diana also brought multitudes of heathen. Its inhabitants are supposed to have been of Greek origin, with also a large number of Jews engaged in commerce. Act 18:19-24; Act 19:1; Act 19:17; Act 19:26; Act 19:35; Act 20:16-17; 1Co 15:32; 1Co 16:8; Eph 1:1; 1Ti 1:3; 2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:12; Rev 1:11; Rev 2:1. It is now named Ayasolook. The ruins are extensive: the sea has retired, leaving a pestilential morass of mud and rushes.

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Ephesus

Paul visits and preaches in

Act 18:19-21; Act 19; Act 20:16-38

Apollos visits and preaches in

Act 18:18-28

Sceva’s sons attempt to expel a demon in

Act 19:13-16

Timothy directed by Paul to remain at

1Ti 1:3

Paul sends Tychicus to

2Ti 4:12

Onesiphorus lives at

2Ti 1:18

Church at

Rev 1:11

The Epistle to the Ephesians

Eph 1

Apocalyptic message to

Rev 2:1-7

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Ephesus

Ephesus (ef’e-ss). The commercial city of Asia Minor, “one of the eyes of Asia.” It stood upon the south side of a plain, with mountains on three sides, and the sea on the west. The river Caster ran across the plain. Paul visited Ephesus on his second tour, Act 18:19-21; Apollos was instructed there by Aquila and Priscilla, Act 18:24-26; Paul dwelt there three years, Act 19:1-41; charged the elders of the church. Act 20:16-28; the angel of the church of Ephesus is named in Rev 2:1-7. The city is now desolate: the ruins of the stadium and theatre remain.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

Ephesus

Eph’esus. (permitted). The capital of the Roman province of Asia, and an illustrious city in the district of Ionia, nearly opposite the island of Samos.

Buildings. — Conspicuous at the head of the harbor of Ephesus was the great temple of Diana or Artemis, the tutelary divinity of the city. This building was raised on immense substructions, in consequence of the swampy nature of the ground. The earlier temple, which had been begun before the Persian war, was burnt down in the night when Alexander the Great was born; and another structure, raise by the enthusiastic co-operation of all the inhabitants of “Asia,” had taken its place. The magnificence of this sanctuary was a proverb throughout the civilized world. In consequence of this devotion the city of Ephesus was called neo’koros, Act 19:35, or “warden” of Diana.

Another consequence of the celebrity of Diana’s worship at Ephesus was that a large manufactory grew up there of portable shrines, which strangers purchased, and devotees carried with them on journeys or set up in the houses. The theatre, into which the mob who had seized on Paul, Act 19:29, rushed, was capable of holding 25,000 or 30,000 persons, and was the largest ever built by the Greeks. The stadium or circus, 685 feet long by 200 wide, where the Ephesians held their shows, is probably referred to by Paul as the place where he “fought with beasts at Ephesus.” 1Co 15:32.

Connection with Christianity — The Jews were established at Ephesus in considerable numbers. Act 2:9; Act 6:9. It is here and here only that we find disciples of John the Baptist explicitly mentioned after the ascension of Christ. Act 18:25; Act 19:3. The first seeds of Christian truth were possibly sown here immediately after the great Pentecost. Act 2:1. St. Paul remained in the place more than two years, Act 19:8; Act 19:10; Act 20:31, during which he wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians. At a later period, Timothy was set over the disciples, as we learn from the two Epistles addressed to him. Among St. Paul’s other companions, two, Trophimus and Tychicus, were natives of Asia, Act 20:4, and the latter was probably, 2Ti 4:12, the former certainly, Act 21:29, a native of Ephesus.

Present condition. — The whole place is now utterly desolate, with the exception of the small Turkish village at Ayasaluk. The ruins are of vast extent.

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

EPHESUS

a city of Asia Minor

Act 18:19; Act 18:24; Act 19:17; Act 19:26; Act 20:16; 1Co 15:32; 1Ti 1:3

2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:12; Rev 2:1

Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible

Ephesus

a much celebrated city of Ionia, in Asia Minor, situated upon the river Cayster, and on the side of a hill. It was the metropolis of the Proconsular Asia, and formerly in great renown among Heathen authors on account of its famous temple of Diana. This temple was seven times set on fire: one of the principal conflagrations happened on the very day that Socrates was poisoned, four hundred years before Christ; the other, on the same night in which Alexander the Great was born, when a person of the name of Erostratus set it on fire, according to his own confession, to get himself a name! It was, however, rebuilt and beautified by the Ephesians, toward which the female inhabitants of the city contributed liberally. In the times of the Apostles it retained much of its former grandeur; but, so addicted were the inhabitants of the city to idolatry and the arts of magic, that the prince of darkness would seem to have, at that time, fixed his throne in it. Ephesus is supposed to have first invented those obscure mystical spells and charms by means of which the people pretended to heal diseases and drive away evil spirits; whence originated the , or Ephesian letters, so often mentioned by the ancients.

2. The Apostle Paul first visited this city, A.D. 54; but being then on his way to Jerusalem, he abode there only a few weeks,

Act 18:19-21. During his short stay, he found a synagogue of the Jews, into which he went, and reasoned with them upon the interesting topics of his ministry, with which they were so pleased that they wished him to prolong his visit. He however declined that, for he had determined, God willing, to be at Jerusalem at an approaching festival; but he promised to return, which he did a few months afterward, and continued there three years, Act 19:10; Act 20:31. While the Apostle abode in Ephesus and its neighbourhood, he gathered a numerous Christian church, to which, at a subsequent period, he wrote that epistle, which forms so important a part of the Apostolic writings. He was then a prisoner at Rome, and the year in which he wrote it must have been 60 or 61 of the Christian aera. It appears to have been transmitted to them by the hands of Tychicus, one of his companions in travel, Eph 6:21. The critics have remarked that the style of the Epistle to the Ephesians is exceedingly elevated; and that it corresponds to the state of the Apostle’s mind at the time of writing. Overjoyed with the account which their messenger brought him of the steadfastness of their faith, and the ardency of their love to all the saints, Eph 1:15; and, transported with the consideration of the unsearchable wisdom of God displayed in the work of man’s redemption, and of his amazing love toward the Gentiles, in introducing them, as fellow-heirs with the Jews, into the kingdom of Christ, he soars into the most exalted contemplation of those sublime topics, and gives utterance to his thoughts in language at once rich and varied. The epistle, says Macknight, is written as it were in a rapture. Grotius remarks that it expresses the sublime matters contained in it in terms more sublime than are to be found in any human language; to which Macknight subjoins this singular but striking observation, that no real Christian can read the doctrinal part of the Epistle to the Ephesians, without being impressed and roused by it, as by the sound of a trumpet.

3. Ephesus was one of the seven churches to which special messages were addressed in the book of Revelation. After a commendation of their first works, to which they were commanded to return, they were accused of having left their first love, and threatened with the removal of their candlestick out of its place, except they should repent, Rev 2:5. The contrast which its present state presents to its former glory, is a striking fulfilment of this prophecy. Ephesus was the metropolis of Lydia, a great and opulent city, and, according to Strabo, the greatest emporium of Asia Minor. Its temple of Diana, whom all Asia worshipped, was adorned with one hundred and twenty-seven columns of Parian marble, each of a single shaft, and sixty feet high, and which formed one of the seven wonders of the world. The remains of its magnificent theatre, in which it is said that twenty thousand people could easily have been seated, are yet to be seen. But a few heaps of stones, and some miserable mud cottages, occasionally tenanted by Turks, without one Christian residing there, are all the remains of ancient Ephesus. It is, as described by different travellers, a solemn and most forlorn spot. The Epistle to the Ephesians is read throughout the world; but there is none in Ephesus to read it now. They left their first love, they returned not to their first works. Their candlestick has been removed out of its place; and the great city of Ephesus is no more. Dr. Chandler says, The inhabitants are a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility; the representatives of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their greatness: some, in the substructions of the glorious edifices which they raised; some, beneath the vaults of the stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions; and some, by the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchres which received their ashes. Its streets are obscured and overgrown. A herd of goats was driven to it for shelter from the sun at noon; and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult its silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theatre and the stadium. The glorious pomp of its Heathen worship is no longer remembered; and Christianity, which was here nursed by Apostles, and fostered by general councils, until it increased to fulness of stature, barely lingers on in an existence hardly visible. I

was at Ephesus, says Mr. Arundell, in January, 1824; the desolation was then complete: a Turk, whose shed we occupied, his Arab servant, and a single Greek, composed the entire population; some Turcomans excepted, whose black tents were pitched among the ruins. The Greek revolution, and the predatory excursions of the Samiotcs, in great measure accounted for this total desertion. There is still, however, a village near, probably the same which Chisull and Van Egmont mention, having four hundred Greek houses.

St. John passed the latter part of his life in Asia Minor, and principally at Ephesus, where he died.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary