464. The Temple of Diana

The Temple of Diana

Act_19:34 : ’93Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’94

We have landed this morning at Smyrna, a city of Asiatic Turkey. One of the seven churches of Asia once stood here. You read in Revelation, ’93To the church in Smyrna write.’94 It is a city that has often been shaken by earthquake, swept by conflagration, blasted by plagues, and butchered by war; and here Bishop Polycarp stood in a crowded amphitheater and when he was asked to give up the advocacy of the Christian religion and save himself from martyrdom, the pro-consul saying: ’93Swear and I release thee; reproach Christ,’94 replied: ’93Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me wrong; how then can I revile my King and Saviour?’94 When he was brought to the fires into which he was about to be thrust, and the officials were about to fasten him to the stake, he said: ’93Let me remain as I am, for he who giveth me strength to sustain the fire will enable me also without your securing me with nails to remain unmoved in the fire.’94 One cypress bending over his grave is the only monument to Bishop Polycarp.

But we are on the way to the city of Ephesus. We must see Ephesus’97associated with the most wonderful apostolic scenes. We hire a special railway train, and in about an hour and a half we arrive at the city of Ephesus, which was called ’93The Great Metropolis of Asia,’94 and ’93One of the eyes of Asia,’94 and ’93The Empress of Ionia,’94 the capital of all learning and magnificence. Here, as I said, was one of the seven churches of Asia, and first of all we visit the ruins of that church where once an ‘c6cumenical Council of two thousand ministers of religion was held.

Mark the fulfilment of the prophecy! Of the seven churches of Asia, four were commended in the book of Revelation, and three were doomed. The cities having the four commended churches still stand; the cities having the three doomed churches are wiped out. It occurred just as the Bible said it would occur. Drive on and you come to the theater, which was six hundred and sixty feet from wall to wall, capable of holding fifty-six thousand seven hundred spectators. Here and there the walls arise almost unbroken, but for the most part the building is down. Just enough of it is left to help the imagination build it up as it was when those audiences shouted and clapped at some great spectacular drama. Their huzzas must have been enough to stun the heavens. Standing there, we could not forget that in that building once assembled a riotous throng for Paul’92s condemnation, because what he preached collided with the idolatry of their national goddess. Paul tried to get into that theater and address the excited multitude, but his friends held him back, lest he be torn in pieces by the mob, and the Recorder of the city had to read the Riot Act among the people who had shrieked for two full hours till their throats were sore and they were black in the face: ’93Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’94

Now we step into the Stadium. Enough of its walls and appointments are left to show what a stupendous place it must have been when used for footraces and for fights with wild beasts. It was a building six hundred and eighty feet long by two hundred feet wide. Paul refers to what occurred there in the way of spectacle when he says, ’93We have been made a spectacle.’94 Yes, Paul says, ’93I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,’94 an expression usually taken as figurative; but I suppose it was literally true, for one of the amusements in that Stadium was to put an unpopular man in the arena with a hungry lion or tiger or panther, and let the fight go on until either the man or the beast or both were slain. And was there ever a more unequal combat proposed? Paul, according to tradition, small, crooked-backed and weak-eyed, but the grandest man in sixty centuries, is led to the center, as the people shout: ’93There he comes, the preacher who has nearly ruined our religion. The lion will make but a brief mouthful of him.’94 It is plain that all the sympathies of that crowd are with the lion. In one of the underground rooms I hear the growl of the wild beasts. They have been kept for several days without food or water in order that they may be especially ravenous and bloodthirsty. What chance is there for Paul? But you cannot tell by a man’92s size or looks how stout a blow he can strike or how keen a blade he can thrust. Witness, heaven and earth and hell, this struggle of Paul with a wild beast. The coolest man in the Stadium is Paul. What has he to fear? He has defied all the powers, earthly and infernal; and if his body tumble under the foot and tooth of the wild beast, his soul will only the sooner find disenthralment. But it is his duty, as far as possible, to preserve his life.

Now, I hear the bolt of the wild beast’92s door shove back, and the whole audience rise to their feet as the fierce brute springs for the arena and toward its small occupant. But the little missionary has his turn of making attack, and with a few well-directed thrusts the monster lies dead in the dust of the arena, and the apostle puts his right foot on the lion and shakes him, and then puts his left foot on him and shakes him’97a scene which Paul afterwards uses for an illustration when he wants to show how Christ will triumph over death’97’94He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet;’94 yes, under his feet. Paul told the literal truth when he said: ’93I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,’94 and as the plural is used, I think he had more than one such fight, or several beasts were let loose upon him at one time. As we stood that day in the middle of the Stadium and looked around at the great structure, the whole scene came back upon us.

But we pass out of the Stadium, for we are in haste for other places of interest in Ephesus. To add to the excitement of the day, one of our party was missing. No man is safe in that region alone unless he is armed and knows how to take sure aim and not miss fire. Our companion in travel had gone out on some explorations of his own, and through the gate where Paul had walked again and again, yet where no man unaccompanied should adventure now. But, after some time had passed, and every minute seemed as long as an hour, and we had time to imagine everything horrible in the way of robbery and assassination, the lost traveler appeared, to receive from our entire party a volley of expostulation for the arousal of so many anxieties.

In the midst of this city of Ephesus once floated an artificial lake, brilliant with painted boats, and through the River Cayster it was connected with the sea, and ships from all parts of the known earth floated in and out, carrying on a commerce which made Ephesus the envy of the world. Great was Ephesus! Its gymnasia, its hippodrome, its odeon, its athen’e6um, its forum, its aqueducts (whose skeletons are still strewn along the city), its towers, its castle of Hadrian, its monument of Androclus, its quarries, which were the granite cradle of cities; its temples, built to Apollo, to Minerva, to Neptune, to Mercury, to Bacchus, to Hercules, to C’e6sar, to Fortune, to Jupiter Olympus. What history and poetry and chisel and canvas have not presented has come up at the call of arch’e6ologists’92 powder-blast and crowbar.

But I have now to unveil the chief wonder of this queen of cities. In 1863, under the patronage of the English Government, Mr. Wood, the explorer, began at Ephesus to feel along under the ground at great depths for roads, for walls, for towers, and here it is’97that for which Ephesus was more celebrated than all else besides’97the temple of the goddess Diana, called the sixth wonder of the world, and in 1889 we stood amid the ruins of that temple, measuring its pillars, transfixed by its sculpture and amazed at what was the greatest temple of idolatry in all time. As I sat on a piece of one of its fallen columns, I said, ’93What earthquake rocked it down, or what hurricane pushed it to the earth, or under what strong wine of centuries did the giant stagger and fall?’94 There have been seven temples of Diana, the ruins of each contributing something for the splendor of all its architectural successors. Two hundred and twenty years was this last temple in construction. Twice as long as the United States have stood was that temple in building. It was nearly twice as large as St. Paul’92s Cathedral, London. Lest it should be disturbed by earthquakes, which have always been fond of making those regions their playground, the temple was built on a marsh, which was made firm by layers of charcoal covered by fleeces of wool.

The stone came from the quarry near by. After it was decreed to build the temple, it was thought it would be necessary to bring the building stone from other lands, but one day a shepherd by the name of Pixodorus, while watching his flocks, saw two rams fighting, and as they missed the interlocking of their horns and one fell, his horn knocked a splinter from the rock and showed by that splinter the lustrous whiteness of the rock. The shepherd ran to the city with a piece of that stone, which revealed a quarry from which place the temple was built; and every month in all ages since the Mayor of Ephesus goes to that quarry to offer sacrifices to the memory of that shepherd who discovered this source of splendor and wealth for the cities of Asia Minor.

In removing the great stones from the quarry to their destined places in the temple, it was necessary, in order to keep the wheels, which were twelve feet in diameter, from sinking deep into the earth under the unparalleled weight, that a frame of timbers be arranged over which the wheels rolled. To put the immense block of marble in its place over the doorway of one of these temples was so vast and difficult an undertaking that the architect at one time gave it up, and in his chagrin intended suicide, but one night in his sleep he dreamed that the stone had settled to the right place, and the next day he found that the great block of marble had by its own weight settled to the right place. The temple of Diana was four hundred and twenty-five feet long by two hundred and twenty feet wide. All Asia was taxed to pay for it. It had one hundred and twenty-seven pillars, each sixty feet high, and each the gift of a king and inscribed with the name of the donor. Now you see the meaning of that passage in Revelation, just as a king presenting one of these pillars to the temple of Diana had his own name chiseled on it and the name of his own country, so says Christ: ’93Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, and I will write upon him my new name.’94 How suggestive and beautiful!

In addition to those pillars that I climbed over while amid the ruins of Diana’92s temple, I saw afterwards eight of those pillars at Constantinople, to which city they had been removed and are now a part of the Mosque of St. Sophia. Those eight columns are all green jasper, but some of those which stood in Diana’92s temple at Ephesus were fairly drenched with brilliant colors. Costly metals stood up in various parts of the temple, where they could catch the fullest flush of the sun. A flight of stairs was carved out of one grape-vine. Doors of cypress wood, which had been kept in glue for years and bordered with bronze in bas-relief, swung against pillars of brass, and resounded with echo upon echo, caught up, and sent on, and hurled back through the corridors.

In that building stood an image of Diana, the goddess. The impression was abroad, as the Bible records, that that image had dropped plumb out of heaven into that temple; and the sculptors who really made the statue or image were put to death, so that they could not testify of its manufacture and so deny its celestial origin. But the material out of which the image of Diana was fashioned contradicts that notion. This image was carved out of ebony and punctured here and there with openings kept full of spikenard so as to hinder the statue from decaying and make it aromatic, but this ebony was covered with bronze and alabaster. A necklace of acorns coiled gracefully around her. There were four lions on each arm, typical of strength. Her head was coroneted. Around this figure stood statues which by wonderful invention shed tears. The air by strange machinery was moist with descending perfumes. The walls multiplied the scene by concave mirrors. Fountains tossed in sheaves of light and fell in showers of diamonds. One painting in that temple cost one hundred and ninety-three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. The treasures of all nations and the spoils of kingdoms were kept here for safe deposit. Criminals from all lands fled to the shelter of this temple, and the law could not touch them. It seemed almost strange that this mountain of architectural snow outside did not melt with the fires of color within. The temple was surrounded with groves, in which roamed for the temptation of hunters, stags and hares and wild boars and all species of game, whether winged or four-footed. There was a cave with statue so intensely brilliant that, according to the legend, it extinguished the eyes of those who looked upon it, unless, at the command of the priests, the hand of the spectator somewhat shaded the eyes. No wonder that even Antony and Alexander and Darius cried out in the words of my text, ’93Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’94

One month of each year, the month of May, was devoted to her worship. Processions in garbs of purple and violet and scarlet moved through it, and there were torches and anthems and choirs in white and timbrels and triangles in music, sacrifices and dances. Here young men and maidens were betrothed with imposing ceremony. Nations voted large amounts to meet the expense of the worship. Fisheries of vast resource were devoted to the support of this resplendence. Horace and Virgil and Homer went into rhapsodies while describing this worship. All artists, all arch’e6ologists, all centuries, agreed in saying: ’93Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’94 Paul, in the presence of this temple of Diana, incorporates it in his figures of speech while speaking of the spiritual temple: ’93Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones…;’94 and no doubt with reference to one of the previous temples which had been set on fire by Herostratus just for the fame of destroying it, Paul says: ’93If any man’92s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss…’94 and all up and down Paul’92s writings you realize that he had not only seen, but had been mightily impressed with what he had seen of the temple of Diana.

In this city the mother of Jesus was said to have been buried. Here dwelt Aquila and Priscilla of Bible fame, who were professors in an extemporized theological seminary, and they taught the eloquent Apollos how to be eloquent for Christ. Here the Apostle John preached, and from here because of his fidelity he was exiled to Patmos. Here Paul warred against the magical arts for which Ephesus was famous. The sorcerers of this city pretended that they could cure diseases, and perform almost any miracle by pronouncing these senseless words: ’93Aski Cataski Lix Tetrax Damnameneus Aision.’94 Paul having performed a miracle in the name of Jesus, there was a lying family of seven brothers who imitated the apostle, and instead of their usual words of incantation, used the word Jesus over a man who was possessed of a devil, and the man possessed flew at them in great fierceness and nearly tore these frauds to pieces; and in consequence all up and down the streets of Ephesus there was indignation excited against the magical arts, and a great bonfire of magical books was kindled in the streets, and the people stirred the blaze until ten thousand dollars’92 worth of black-art literature had burned to ashes.

But all the glory of Ephesus I have described has gone now. At some seasons of the year awful malarias sweep over the place and put upon mattress or in graves a large portion of the population. In the adjacent marshes scorpions, centipedes and all forms of reptilian life crawl and hiss and sting; while hyenas and jackals at night slink in and out of the ruins of buildings which once startled the nations with their almost supernatural grandeur.

But here is a lesson which has never yet been drawn out. Do you not see in that temple of Diana an expression of what the world needs? It wants a God who can provide food. Diana was a huntress. In pictures on many of the coins she held a stag by the horn with one hand and a bundle of arrows in the other. Oh, this is a hungry world! Diana could not give one pound of meat or one mouthful of food to the millions of her worshipers. She was a dead divinity, an imaginary deity; and so in idolatrous lands the vast majority of people never have enough to eat. It is only in the countries where the God of heaven and earth is worshiped that the vast majority have enough to eat. Let Diana have her arrows and her hounds; our God has the sunshine and the showers and the harvests, and in proportion as he is worshiped does plenty reign.

So also in the temple of Diana the world expressed its need of a refuge. To it from all parts of the land came debtors who could not pay their debts and the offenders of the law that they might escape incarceration. But she sheltered them only a little while, and, while she kept them from arrest, she could not change their hearts, and the guilty remained guilty. But our God in Jesus Christ is a refuge into which we may fly from all our sins and all our pursuers, and not only be safe for time but safe for eternity, and the guilt is pardoned and the nature is trans-formed. What Diana could not do for her worshipers, our Christ accomplishes for us.

Rock of Ages cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee.

Then, in that temple were deposited treasures from all the earth for safe-keeping. Chrysostom says it was the treasure-house of nations; they brought gold and silver and precious stones and coronets from across the sea, and put them under the care of Diana of the Ephesians. But again and again were those treasures ransacked, captured or destroyed. Nero robbed them, the Scythians scattered them, the Goths burned them. Diana failed those who trusted her with treasures; but our God, to him we may entrust all our treasures for this world and the next, and fail any one who puts confidence in him he never will. After the last jasper column has fallen and the last temple on earth has gone into ruins and the world itself has suffered demolition, the Lord will keep for us our best treasures.

But notice what killed Ephesus, and what has killed most of the cities that lie buried in the cemetery of nations. Luxury! The costly baths, which had been the means of health to the city, became its ruin. Instead of the cold baths that had been the invigoration of the people, the hot baths, which are only intended for the infirm or the invalid, were substituted. In these hot baths many lay most of the time. Authors wrote books while in these baths. Business was neglected and a hot bath taken four or five times a day. When the keeper of the baths was reprimanded for not having them warm enough, one of the rulers said: ’93You blame him for not making the bath warm enough; I blame you because you have it warm at all.’94 But that warm bath which enervated Ephesus, and which is always enervating except when followed by cold baths (no reference of course to delicate constitutions), was only a type of what went on in all departments of Ephesian life; and in luxurious indulgence Ephesus fell, and the last triangle of music was tinkled in Diana’92s temple, and the last wrestler disappeared from her gymnasiums, and the last racer took his garland in the Stadium, and the last plea was heard in her forum; and even the sea, as if to withdraw the last commercial opportunity from that metropolis, retreated down the beach, leaving her without the harbor in which had floated a thousand ships. Brooklyn, New York, London and all modern cities, cis-Atlantic and trans-Atlantic, take warning! What luxury unlimited did for Ephesus, luxury unlimited may do for all. Opulence and splendor God grant to all the people, to all the cities, to all the lands; but at the same time may he grant the righteous use of them.

Gymnasiums? Yes, but see that the vigor gained in them be consecrated to God. Magnificent temples of worship? Yes, but see that in them instead of conventionalities and cold pomp of service, there be warmth of devotion and the pure Gospel preached. Imposing court-houses? Yes, but in them let justice and mercy rule. Palaces of journalism? Yes, but let all of the printing-presses be marshaled for enlightenment and truth. Great post-office buildings? Yes, but through them, day by day, may correspondence helpful, elevating and moral pass. Ornate dwelling-houses? Yes, but in them let there be altars of devotion, and conjugal, filial, paternal and Christian fidelity rule. London for magnitude, Berlin for universities, Paris for fashions, Rome for cathedrals, Athens for classics, Thebes for hieroglyphics, Memphis for tombs, Babylon for gardens, Ephesus for idolatry; but what shall be the characteristics of our American cities when they shall have attained their full stature? Would that ’93Holiness to the Lord’94 might be inscribed upon all our municipalities. One thing is certain, and that is, that all idolatry must come down. When Diana, the greatest goddess of the earth, enshrined in the greatest temple that ever stood, was prostrated at Ephesus, it was a prophecy of the overthrow of all the idolatries that have cursed the earth; and anything we love more than God is an idol, and there is as much idolatry in the nineteenth century as in the first, and in America as in Asia.

As our train pulled out from the station at Ephesus, the cars surrounded by the worst-looking group of villains I ever gazed on’97all of them seeming in a wrangle with each other and trying to get into a wrangle with us’97and we moved along the columns of ancient aqueducts, each column crowned with storks, having built their nests there; and we rolled down toward Smyrna, and that night in a Sailors’92 Bethel we spoke of the Christ whom the world must know or perish, we felt that between cradle and grave there could not be anything much more enthralling for body, mind, and soul, than our visit to Ephesus.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage