_THE EPHESIAN RIOT AND A PRUDENT TOWN CLERK._
"About that time there arose no small stir concerning the Way.
For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made
silver shrines of Diana, brought no little business unto the
craftsmen; whom he gathered together, with the workmen of like
occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this business we have
our wealth. And ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but
almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned
away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made
with hands; and not only is there danger that this our trade come
into disrepute; but also that the temple of the great goddess
Diana be made of no account, and that she should even be deposed
from her magnificence, whom all Asia and the world
worshippeth."--ACTS xix. 23-8.
St. Paul's labours at Ephesus covered, as he informs us himself, when
addressing the elders of that city, a space of three years. The
greater portion of that period had now expired, and had been spent in
peaceful labours so far as the heathen world and the Roman authorities
were concerned. The Jews, indeed, had been very troublesome at times.
It is in all probability to them and their plots St. Paul refers when
in 1 Cor. xv. 32 he says, "If after the manner of men I fought with
beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me?" as the unbelieving
Gentiles do not seem to have raised any insurrection against his
teaching till he felt his work was done, and he was, in fact,
preparing to leave Ephesus. Before, however, we proceed to discuss
the startling events which finally decided his immediate departure, we
must consider a brief passage which connects the story of Sceva's sons
and their impious temerity with that of the silversmith Demetrius and
the Ephesian riot.
The incident connected with Sceva's sons led to the triumph over the
workers in magic, when the secret professors of that art came and
publicly acknowledged their hidden sins, proving their reality by
burning the instruments of their wickedness. Here, then, St. Luke
inserts a notice which has proved to be of the very greatest
importance in the history of the Christian Church. Let us insert it in
full that we may see its bearing: "Now after these things were ended,
Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and
Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must
also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of them that
ministered unto him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia
for a while." This passage tells us that St. Paul, after his triumph
over the practices of magic, and feeling too that the Church had been
effectually cleansed, so far as human foresight and care could effect
it, from the corroding effects of the prevalent Ephesian vice, now
determined to transfer the scene of his labours to Macedonia and
Achaia, wishing to visit those Churches which five years before he had
founded. It was full five years, at least, since he had seen the
Philippian, Thessalonian, and Berœan congregations. Better than
three years had elapsed since he had left Corinth, the scene of more
prolonged work than he had ever bestowed on any other city except
Ephesus. He had heard again and again from all these places, and some
of the reports, especially those from Corinth, had been very
disquieting. The Apostle wished, therefore, to go and see for himself
how the Churches of Christ in Macedonia and Achaia were faring. He
next wished to pay a visit to Jerusalem to consult with his brethren,
and then felt his destiny pushing him still westwards, desiring to see
Rome, the world's capital, and the Church which had sprung up there,
of which his friends Priscilla and Aquila must have told him much.
Such seems to have been his intentions in the spring of the year 57,
to which his three years' sojourn in Ephesus seems now to have brought
him.
The interval of time covered by the two verses which I have quoted
above is specially interesting, because it was just then that the
First Epistle to the Corinthians was written. All the circumstances
and all the indications of time which the Epistle itself offers
conspire to fix the writing of it to this special date and place. The
Epistle, for instance, refers to Timothy as having been already sent
into Macedonia and Greece: "For this cause have I sent unto you
Timothy, who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which be in
Christ" (1 Cor. iv. 17). In Acts xix. 22 we have it stated, "Having
sent into Macedonia Timothy and Erastus." The Epistle again plainly
tells us the very season of the year in which it was written. The
references to the Passover season--"For our passover also hath been
sacrificed, even Christ; wherefore let us keep the feast"--are words
which naturally were suggested by the actual celebration of the Jewish
feast, to a mind like St. Paul's, which readily grasped at every
passing allusion or chance incident to illustrate his present
teaching. Timothy and Erastus had been despatched in the early spring,
as soon as the passes and roads were thoroughly open and navigation
established. The Passover in A.D. 57 happened on April 7th, and the
Apostle fixes the exact date of the First Epistle to Corinth, when in
the sixteenth chapter and eighth verse he says to the Corinthians, "I
will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." I merely refer now to this
point to illustrate the vastness of the Apostle's labours, and to call
attention to the necessity for comparing together the Acts and the
Epistles in the minute manner exemplified by Paley in the _Horæ
Paulinæ_, if we wish to gain a complete view of a life like St.
Paul's, so completely consecrated to one great purpose.[194]
[194] This subject properly belongs to commentators on 1
Corinthians. Paley, in _Horæ Paulinæ_, ch. iii., and Dr. Marcus
Dods, in his _Introduction to the New Testament_, pp. 104, 105,
set forth the evidence in a convenient shape. I may remark that
here, as elsewhere, I adopt in the main Mr. Lewin's chronology, as
contained in his _Fasti Sacri_. Without pledging myself to agree
in all his details, his scheme forms a good working hypothesis, on
which a writer can work when composing an expositor's commentary,
not one for professed critics or profound scholars.
Man may propose, but even an apostle cannot dispose of his fate as he
will, or foretell under ordinary circumstances how the course of
events will affect him. St. Paul intended to stay at Ephesus till
Pentecost, which that year happened on May 28th. Circumstances however
hastened his departure. We have been considering the story of St.
Paul's residence in Ephesus, but hitherto we have not heard one word
about the great Ephesian deity, Diana, as the Romans called her, or
Artemis, as St. Luke, according to the ordinary local use, correctly
calls her in the Greek text of the Acts, or Anaïtis, as her ancient
name had been from early times at Ephesus and throughout Asia
Minor.[195] If this riot had not happened, if our attention had not
been thus called to Diana and her worship, there might have been a
total blank in St. Luke's narrative concerning this famous deity, and
her equally famous temple, which was at the time one of the wonders of
the world. And then some scoffers reading in ancient history
concerning the wonders of this temple, and finding the records of
modern discoveries confirming the statements of antiquity might have
triumphantly pointed to St. Luke's silence about Diana and the
Ephesian temple as a proof of his ignorance. A mere passing riot alone
has saved us from this difficulty. Now this case well illustrates the
danger of arguing from silence. Silence concerning any special point
is sometimes used as a proof that a particular writer knew nothing
about it. But this is not the sound conclusion. Silence proves in
itself nothing more than that the person who is silent either had no
occasion to speak upon that point or else thought it wiser or more
expedient to hold his tongue. Josephus, for instance, is silent about
Christianity; but that is no proof that Christianity did not exist in
his time, or that he knew nothing about it. His silence may simply
have arisen because he found Christianity an awkward fact, and not
knowing how to deal with it he left it alone. It is well to bear this
simple law of historical evidence in mind, for a great many of the
popular objections to the sacred narratives, both of the Old and New
Testaments, are based upon the very dangerous ground of silence
alone.[196] Let us, however, return to Diana of the Ephesians. The
worship of the goddess Artemis dominated the whole city of
Ephesus,[197] and helped to shape the destinies of St. Paul at this
season, for while intending to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost at the
end of May, the annual celebration of Artemisia, the feast of the
patron deity of the city, happened, of which celebration Demetrius
took advantage to raise a disturbance which hastened St. Paul's
departure into Macedonia.
[195] The student may consult on the identification of Artemis and
the Oriental or Persian deity Anaïtis, the _Revue Archéologique_
for 1885, vol. ii., pp. 105-115, and Derenbourg and Saglio's
_Dict. des Antiq._, s.v. Diana.
[196] This argument may be pressed further. The silence which we
observe in much of second-century literature about the New
Testament Canon and Episcopacy is of the same character. The best
known and most notorious facts are those about which authors are
most apt to be silent when writing for contemporaries, simply
because every person acknowledges them and takes them for granted.
[197] This is manifest at once if the reader will consult Mr.
Wood's _Ephesus_ or Guhl's _Ephesiaca_, a work which, though
published (in 1843) before modern discoveries had taught all we
now know, is a most elaborate account of ancient Ephesus gleaned
out of ancient writers.
We have now cleared the way for the consideration of the narrative of
the riot, which is full of the most interesting information concerning
the progress of the gospel, and offers us the most wonderful instances
of the minute accuracy of St. Luke, which again have been illustrated
and confirmed in the fullest manner by the researches so abundantly
bestowed upon Ephesus within the lifetime of the present generation.
Let us take the narrative in the exact order given us by St. Luke:
"About that time there arose no small stir about the Way." But why
about that special time? We have already said that here we find an
indication of the date of the riot. It must have happened during the
latter part of April, A.D. 57, and we know that at Ephesus almost the
whole month of April, or Artemisius, was dedicated to the honour and
worship of Artemis.[198] But here it may be asked, How did it come to
pass that Artemis or Diana occupied such a large share in the public
worship of Ephesus and the province of Asia? Has modern research
confirmed the impression which this chapter leaves upon the mind, that
the Ephesian people were above all else devoted to the worship of the
deity? The answers to both these queries are not hard to give, and
serve to confirm our belief in the honesty and accuracy of the sacred
penman. The worship of Artemis, or of Anaïtis rather, prevailed in the
peninsula of Asia Minor from the time of Cyrus, who introduced it six
or seven centuries before.[199] Anaïtis was the Asiatic deity of
fruitfulness, the same as Ashtoreth of the Bible, whom the Greeks soon
identified with their own goddess Artemis. Her worship quickly spread,
specially through that portion of the country which afterwards became
the province of Asia, and through the adjacent districts; showing how
rapidly an evil taint introduced into a nation's spiritual life-blood
spreads throughout its whole organisation, and when once introduced
how persistently it holds its ground; a lesson taught here in New
Testament times, as in Old Testament days it was proclaimed in
Israel's case by the oft-repeated statement concerning her kings,
"Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam [king after king] departed not."
The spiritual life and tone of a nation is a very precious thing, and
because it is so the Church of England does well to bestow so much of
her public supplication upon those who have power, like Cyrus and
Jeroboam, to taint it at the very foundation and origin thereof. When,
for instance, St. Paul landed at Perga in Pamphylia, on the first
occasion when he visited Asia Minor as a Christian missionary, his eye
was saluted with the splendid temple of Diana on the side of the hill
beneath which the city was built, and all over the country at every
important town similar temples were erected in her honour, where their
ruins have been traced by modern travellers.[200] The cult or worship
introduced by Cyrus exactly suited the morals and disposition of these
Oriental Greeks, and flourished accordingly.
[198] See on the exact time of the Macedonian and Ephesian month
of Artemisius, Ussher's treatise on the Macedonian and Asiatic
solar year, in the seventh volume of his works Ed. Elrington, p.
425, with which may be compared Bishop Lightfoot's _Ignatius_, i.
660-700. Mr. Lewin, in his _Fasti Sacri_, p. 309, makes it the
month of May. The Macedonian month Artemisius extended from March
25th to April 24th. This point is further discussed in Lewin's
_St. Paul_, vol. i., p. 405. If St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians at or
shortly before April 7th, the date of the Passover, the riot which
hastened his departure must have happened within the succeeding
fortnight. Bœckh, in the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions, No.
2954, inserts a long Greek inscription, found one hundred and
seventy years ago at Ephesus, laying down the ceremonial to be
observed in honour of the deity throughout the whole month, which
Mr. Lewin translates, vol. i., p. 405. See, however, more upon
this below.
[199] The Persian language was still used in the worship of Diana
at Hierocæsarea and Hypæpa, two well-known towns of the province
of Asia in the second century of our era. See Pausanias, v. 27;
cf. Tacitus, _Annals_, iii. 62, and Ramsay's _Hist. Geog._, p.
128.
[200] Voluntary associations were formed all over Asia Minor to
cultivate the worship of Artemis. Modern research, for instance,
has found inscriptions raised by the Xenoi Tekmoreioi indicating
their peculiar devotion to Diana and her worship. They specially
flourished at a place called Saghir, near Antioch in Pisidia. It
is a curious fact that the cult of the B.V.M. has been substituted
for that of Artemis by the Greeks of the neighbourhood, and a
feast in her honour is celebrated at the same time as the ancient
feast. See _Revue Archéologique_, 1887, vol. i., p. 96; Ramsay, in
his _Geography of Asia Minor_, p. 409, and in _Jour. Hell.
Studies_ for 1883.
Artemis was esteemed the protectress of the cities where her temples
were built, which, as in the case of Ephesus and of Perga, were placed
outside the gates like the temple of Jupiter at Lystra, in order that
their presence might cast a halo of protection over the adjacent
communities. The temple of Diana at Ephesus was a splendid building.
It had been several times destroyed by fire notwithstanding its
revered character and the presence of the sacred image,[201] and had
been as often rebuilt with greater splendour than before, till the
temple was erected existing in St. Paul's day, which justly excited
the wonder of mankind, as its splendid ruins have shown, which Mr.
Wood has excavated in our own time at the expense of the English
Government.[202] The devotion of the Ephesians to this ancient Asiatic
deity had even been increasing of late years when St. Paul visited
Ephesus, as a decree still exists in its original shape graven in
stone exactly as St. Paul must have seen it enacting extended honours
to the deity. As this decree bears directly upon the famous riot which
Demetrius raised, we insert it here in full, as an interesting
confirmation and illustration of the sacred narrative: "To the
Ephesian Diana. Forasmuch as it is notorious that not only among the
Ephesians, but also everywhere among the Greek nations, temples are
consecrated to her, and sacred precincts, and that she hath images and
altars dedicated to her on account of her plain manifestations of
herself, and that, besides, the greatest token of veneration paid to
her, a month is called after her name, by us Artemision, by the
Macedonians and other Greek nations and their cities, Artemisius, in
which month general gatherings and festivals are celebrated, and more
especially in our own city, the nurse of its own, the Ephesian
goddess. Now the people of Ephesus deeming it proper that the whole
month called by her name should be sacred and set apart to the
goddess, have resolved by this decree, that the observation of it by
them be altered. Therefore it is enacted, that the whole month
Artemision in all the days of it shall be holy, and that throughout
the month there shall be a continued celebration of feasts and the
Artemisian festivals and the holy days, seeing that the entire month
is sacred to the goddess; for from this improvement in her worship our
city shall receive additional lustre and enjoy perpetual
prosperity."[203] Now this decree, which preceded St. Paul's labours
perhaps by twenty years or more, has an important bearing on our
subject. St. Luke tells us that "about this time there arose no small
stir about the Way"; and it was only quite natural and quite in accord
with what we know of other pagan persecutions, and of human nature in
general, that the precise time at which the Apostle had then arrived
should have been marked by this riot. The whole city of Ephesus was
then given up to the celebration of the festival held in honour of
what we may call the national religion and the national deity. That
festival lasted the whole month, and was accompanied, as all human
festivals are apt to be accompanied, with a vast deal of drunkenness
and vice, as we are expressly told in an ancient Greek romance,
written by a Greek of whom little is known, named Achilles
Tatius.[204] The people of Ephesus were, in fact, mad with excitement,
and it did not require any great skill to stir them up to excesses in
defence of the endangered deity whose worship was the glory of their
city. We know from one or two similar cases that the attack made upon
St. Paul at this pagan festival had exact parallels in these early
ages.
[201] The original sacred image, which was preserved inside a
screen or curtain in the inmost temple, was a shapeless mass of
wood something like the prehistoric blocks of wood or stone which
were esteemed at Athens and elsewhere the most venerable images of
their favourite deities: see Pausanias, _Description of Greece_,
i. 26. The legend at Ephesus was just the same as at Athens and
elsewhere, that these prehistoric images had fallen down from
heaven. Some of them may have been aerolites.
[202] The temple of Ephesus is depicted in Conybeare and Howson's
and Lewin's _St. Paul_, as well as it could have been restored
from a study of books. At the time of their publication neither
Mr. Wood's discoveries had been made nor his work on Ephesus
published. The plans and engravings in Mr. Wood's work of course
supersede all others. The plans, etc., in the other works are
sufficiently accurate to enable the reader to realise the language
of the Acts.
[203] The original of this decree will be found in Bœckh's
_Corp. Inscriptt. Græc._, No. 2954, and the translation in Lewin's
_St. Paul_, 405.
[204] There is a long account of Achilles Tatius in the
_Bibliotheca Græca_ of Fabricius. He was a pagan first, and then
became a Christian. His age is uncertain, but he certainly seems
to have lived when pagan feasts were still observed in their
ancient splendour. The book in which he describes them is called
_De Amoribus Clitophontis et Leucippes_, where in Book VI., ch.
iii. there is an account of the drunkenness and idleness at the
feast of Diana. The words of Achilles Tatius bring the scene
vividly before us as St. Paul must have seen it: "It was the
festival of Artemis, and every place was full of drunken men, and
all the market-place was full of a multitude of men through the
whole night." In Mason's _Diocletian Persecution_, p. 361, there
will be found an account of a festival celebrated in honour of
Artemis in the same spring season at Ancyra in Galatia. This
latter account is useful as giving us an authentic account of a
Celtic festival of Diana about the year 306 A.D. It would seem as
if an annual public washing of the image of Diana constituted an
important part of the ceremonial. Both at Ancyra as told in the
Acts of St. Theodotus and at Ephesus the image of Diana was
annually carried about in a waggon drawn by mules: see Guhl's
_Ephesiaca_, p. 114. At Ancyra, during the Diocletian persecution,
seven Christian virgins were dressed as priestesses of Diana and
condemned to publicly wash the idol. Upon their refusal they were
all drowned in the lake where the image was washed. The Seven
Virgins of Ancyra are celebrated in the annals of Christian
martyrdom for their heroic resistance on this occasion. See Mason,
_l.c._, and the _Dict. Christ. Biog._, _s.v._ Seven Virgins of
Ancyra and Theodotus.
This festival in honour of Diana was generally utilised as the
meeting-time of the local diet or parliament of the province of Asia,
where deputies from all the cities of the province met together to
consult on their common wants and transmit their decisions to the
proconsul, a point to which we shall later on have occasion to refer.
Just ninety years later one of the most celebrated of the primitive
martyrs suffered upon the same occasion at Smyrna. Polycarp, the
disciple of St. John, lived to a very advanced period, and helped to
hand down the tradition of apostolic life and doctrine to another
generation. Polycarp, is, in fact, through Irenæus, one of the chief
historic links uniting the Church of later times with the apostles.
Polycarp suffered martyrdom amid the excitement raised during the
meeting of the same diet of Asia held, not at Ephesus, but at Smyrna,
and attended by the same religious ceremonies and observances. Or let
us again turn towards the West, and we shall find it the same. The
martyrdoms of Vienne and Lyons described by Eusebius in the fifth book
of his history are among the most celebrated in the whole history of
the Church, and as such have been already referred to and used in this
commentary.[205] These martyrdoms are an illustration of the same fact
that the Christians were always exposed to peculiar danger at the
annual pagan celebrations. The Gallic tribes, the seven nations of the
Gauls, as they were called, were holding their annual diet or
assembly, and celebrating the worship of the national deities when
their zeal was excited to red-hot pitch against the Christians of
Vienne and Lyons, resulting in the terrible outbreak of which Eusebius
in his fifth book tells us.[206] As it was in Gaul about 177 A.D. and
in Smyrna about 155 A.D., so was it in Ephesus in the year 57; the
month's festival, celebrated in honour of Diana, accompanied with
eating and drinking and idleness in abundance, told upon the populace,
and made them ready for any excess, so that it is no wonder we should
read, "About that time there arose no small stir about the Way." Then
too there is another circumstance which may have stirred up Demetrius
to special violence. His trade was probably falling off owing to St.
Paul's labours, and this may have been brought home to him with
special force by the results of the festival which was then in process
of celebration or perhaps almost finished. All the circumstances fit
this hypothesis. The shrine-makers were, we know, a very important
element in the population of Ephesus, and the trade of shrine-making
and the manufacture of other silver ornaments conduced in no small
degree to the commercial prosperity of the city of Ephesus. This is
plainly stated upon the face of our narrative: "Ye know that by this
business we have our wealth, and ye see and hear that not alone at
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath turned away
much people," facts which could not have been more forcibly brought
home to them than by the decreasing call they were experiencing for
the particular articles which they produced.
[205] See vol. i., pp. 8, 9.
[206] See the articles on Polycarp in the _Dict. Christ. Biog._,
iv. 426, and on Martyrs of Lyons, iii. 764. As regards Polycarp,
see also Lightfoot's _Ignatius_, vol. i., p. 436; and as regards
the Martyrs of Lyons, see Rénan's _Marc-Aurèle_, pp. 329, 331. It
is interesting to notice, in the writings of St. Paulinus of Nola
written about the year 400 A.D., his complaints about the abuses,
drunkenness and idleness, connected with the feasts and holy days
observed in honour of his great patron and hero St. Felix the
Martyr. A similar feeling of the moral dangers connected with
religious holy days led to the abbreviation of the week's holiday
following Easter and Whitsunday to Monday and Tuesday as at
present.
Now the question may be proposed, Was this the fact? Was Ephesus
celebrated for its shrine-makers, and were shrines and silver
ornaments a favourite manufacture in that city? Here modern research
comes in to testify to the marked truthfulness, the minute accuracy of
St. Luke. We do not now need to appeal to ancient authors, as _Lives
of St. Paul_ like those written by Mr. Lewin or by Messrs. Conybeare
and Howson do. The excavations which have taken place at Ephesus since
the publication of these valuable works have amply vindicated the
historic character of our narrative on this point. Mr. Wood in the
course of his excavations at Ephesus discovered a vast number of
inscriptions and sculptures which had once adorned the temple of
Ephesus, but upon its destruction had been removed to the theatre,
which continued in full operation long after the pagan temple had
disappeared.[207] Among these inscriptions there was one enormous one
brought to light. It was erected some forty years or so after St.
Paul's time, but it serves in the minuteness of its details to
illustrate the story of Demetrius, the speech he made, and the riot he
raised. This inscription was raised in honour of a wealthy Roman named
Gaius Vibius Salutarius, who had dedicated to Artemis a large number
of silver images weighing from three to seven pounds each, and had
even provided a competent endowment for keeping up a public festival
in her honour, which was to be celebrated on the birthday of the
goddess, which happened in the month of April or May. The inscription,
which contains the particulars of the offering made by this Roman,
would take up quite too much space if we desired to insert it. We can
only now refer our readers to Mr. Wood's book on Ephesus, where they
will find it given at full length. A few lines may, however, be quoted
to illustrate the extent to which the manufacture of silver shrines
and silver ornaments in honour of Artemis must have flourished in
Ephesus. This inscription enumerates the images dedicated to the
goddess which Salutarius had provided by his endowments, entering into
the most minute details as to their treatment and care. The following
passage gives a vivid picture of Ephesian idolatry as the Apostle saw
it: "Let two statues of Artemis of the weight of three pounds three
ounces be religiously kept in the custody of Salutarius, who himself
consecrated them, and after the death of Salutarius, let the aforesaid
statues be restored to the town-clerk of the Ephesians, and let it be
made a rule that they be placed at the public meetings above the seat
of the council in the theatre before the golden statue of Artemis and
the other statues. And a golden Artemis weighing three pounds and two
silver deer attending her, and the rest of the images of the weight of
two pounds ten ounces and five grammes, and a silver statue of the
Sacred Senate of the weight of four pounds two ounces, and a silver
statue of the council of the Ephesians. Likewise a silver Artemis
bearing a torch of the weight of six pounds, and a silver statue of
the Roman people." And so the inscription proceeds to name and devote
silver and golden statues literally by dozens, which Salutarius
intended to be borne in solemn procession on the feast-day of Diana.
It is quite evident that did we possess but this inscription alone, we
have here amply sufficient evidence showing us that one of the staple
trades of Ephesus, one upon which the prosperity and welfare of a
large section of its inhabitants depended, was this manufacture of
silver and gold ornaments directly connected with the worship of the
goddess.[208] For it must be remembered that the guild of
shrine-makers did not depend alone upon the chance liberality of a
stray wealthy Roman or Greek like Salutarius, who might feel moved to
create a special endowment or bestow special gifts upon the temple.
The guild of shrine-makers depended upon the large and regular demand
of a vast population who required a supply of cheap and handy shrines
to satisfy their religious cravings. The population of the surrounding
districts and towns poured into Ephesus at this annual festival of
Diana and paid their devotions in her temple. But even the pagans
required some kind of social and family religion. They could not live
as too many nominal Christians are contented to live, without any
family or personal acknowledgment of their dependence upon a higher
power. There was no provision for public worship in the rural
districts answering to our parochial system, and so they supplied the
want by purchasing on occasions like this feast of Diana, shrines,
little silver images, or likenesses of the central cell of the great
temple where the sacred image rested, and which served as central
points to fix their thoughts and excite the gratitude due to the
goddess whom they adored. Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen depended
upon the demand created by a vast population of devout believers in
Artemis, and when this demand began to fall off Demetrius traced the
bad trade which he and his fellows were experiencing to the true
source. He recognised the Christian teaching imparted by St. Paul as
the deadly enemy of his unrighteous gains, and naturally directed the
rage of the mob against the preacher of truth and righteousness. The
actual words of Demetrius are deserving of the most careful study, for
they too have been illustrated by modern discovery in the most
striking manner. Having spoken of the results of St. Paul's teaching
in Asia of which they all had had personal experience, he then
proceeds to expatiate on its dangerous character, not only as regards
their own personal interests, but as regards the goddess and her
sacred dignity as well: "And not only is there danger that this our
trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great
goddess Diana be made of no account, and that she should be deposed
from her magnificence whom all Asia and the world worshippeth."
Demetrius cleverly but lightly touches upon the self-interest of the
workmen. He does not dwell on that topic too long, because it is never
well for an orator who wishes to rouse his hearers to enthusiasm to
dwell too long or too openly upon merely selfish consideration. Man is
indeed intensely selfish by nature, but then he does not like to be
told so too openly, or to have his own selfishness paraded too
frequently before his face. He likes to be flattered as if he
cherished a belief in higher things, and to have his low ends and
baser motives clothed in a similitude of noble enthusiasm. Demetrius
hints therefore at their own impoverishment as the results of Paul's
teaching, but expatiates on the certain destruction which awaits the
glory of their time-honoured and world-renowned deity if free course
be any longer permitted to such doctrine. This speech is a skilful
composition all through. It shows that the ancient rhetorical skill of
the Greeks still flourished in Ephesus, and not the least skilful, and
at the same time not the least true touch in the speech was that
wherein Demetrius reminded his hearers that the world were onlookers
and watchers of their conduct, noting whether or not they would
vindicate Diana's assailed dignity. It was a true touch, I say, for
modern research has shown that the worship of the Ephesian Artemis was
world-wide in its extent; it had come from the distant east, and had
travelled to the farthest west. We have already noted the testimony of
modern travellers showing that her worship extended over Asia Minor in
every direction. This fact Demetrius long ago told the Ephesians, and
ancient authors have repeated his testimony, and modern travellers
have merely corroborated them. But we were not aware how accurate was
Demetrius about the whole world worshipping Artemis, till in our own
time the statues and temples of the Ephesian goddess were found
existing so far west as Southern Gaul, Marseilles, and the coast of
Spain, proving that wherever Asiatic sailors and Asiatic merchants
came thither they brought with them the worship of their favourite
deity.[209]
[207] The pagan temples were almost universally destroyed about
the year 400. The edicts dealing with this matter and an ample
commentary upon them will be found in the Theodosian Code, edited
by that eminent scholar Godefroy.
[208] An interesting confirmation of this fact came to light in
modern times. In the year 1830 there was found in Southern France
a piece of such Ephesian silver work wrought in honour of Artemis,
and carried into Gaul by one of her worshippers. It is now
deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and has been fully
described in an interesting article in the _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, vol. iii., pp. 104-106, written by that eminent
antiquary C. Waldstein.
[209] See the _Revue Archéologique_ for 1886, vol. ii., p. 257,
about the worship of the Ephesian Artemis in Marseilles and
Southern Gaul, and an article in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_
for 1889, vol. x., p. 216, by Professor Ramsay, on the vast extent
of Artemis worship in Asia. In the same journal, for 1890, vol.
xi., p. 235, we have an account of the discovery of one of the
original seats of Artemis worship in Eastern Cilicia by Mr. J. T.
Bent; while again, in vol. iv., p. 40-43, Ramsay gives us a
subscription list raised in Pisidia for the purpose of building a
temple of Artemis in a country district.
Let us pass on, however, and see whether the remainder of this
narrative will not afford us subject-matter for abundant
illustrations. The mob drank in the speech of Demetrius, and responded
with the national shout, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," a cry
which has been found inscribed on altars and tablets all over the
province of Asia, showing that it was a kind of watchword among the
inhabitants of that district. The crowd of workmen whom Demetrius had
been addressing then rushed into the theatre, the usual place of
assembly for the people of Ephesus, dragging with them "Gaius and
Aristarchus,[210] men of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel." The
Jews too followed the mob, eager to make the unexpected tumult serve
their own hostile purposes against St. Paul. News of the riot was soon
carried to the Apostle, who learning of the danger to which his
friends were exposed desired to enter that theatre the magnificent
proportions and ornamentation of which have been for the first time
displayed to modern eyes by the labours of Mr. Wood. But the local
Christians knew the Ephesian mob and their state of excitement better
than St. Paul did, and so they would not allow him to risk his life
amid the infuriated crowd. The Apostle's teaching too had reached the
very highest ranks of Ephesian and Asiatic society. The very Asiarchs,
being his friends, sent unto him and requested him not to enter the
theatre. Here again we come across one of those incidental references
which display St. Luke's acquaintance with the local peculiarities of
the Ephesian constitution, and which have been only really appreciated
in the light of modern discoveries. In the time of King James I.,
when the Authorised Version was made, the translators knew nothing of
the proof of the sacred writer's accuracy which lay under their hands
in the words, "Certain of the Asiarchs or chief officers of Asia," and
so they translated them very literally but very incorrectly, "Certain
of the chief of Asia," ignoring completely the official rank and title
which these men possessed. A few words must suffice to give a brief
explanation of the office these men held. The province of Asia from
ancient times had celebrated this feast of Artemis at an assembly of
all the cities of Asia. This we have already explained. The Romans
united with the worship of Artemis the worship of the Emperor and of
the City of Rome; so that loyalty to the Emperor and loyalty to the
national religion went hand in hand. They appointed certain officials
to preside at these games, they made them presidents of the local
diets or parliaments which assembled to discuss local matters at these
national assemblies, they gave them the highest positions in the
province next to the proconsul, they surrounded them with great pomp,
and endued them with considerable power so long as the festival
lasted, and then, being intent on uniting economy with their
generosity, they made these Asiarchs, as they were called, responsible
for all the expenses incurred in the celebration of the games and
diets. It was a clever policy, as it secured the maximum of
contentment on the people's part with the minimum of expense to the
imperial government. This arrangement clearly limited the position of
the Asiarchate to rich men, as they alone could afford the enormous
expenses involved. The Greeks, specially those of Asia, as we have
already pointed out, were very flashy in their disposition. They loved
titles and decorations; so much so that one of their own orators of
St. Paul's day, Dion Chrysostom, tells us that, provided they got a
title, they would suffer any indignity. There were therefore crowds of
rich men always ready to take the office of Asiarch, which by degrees
was turned into a kind of life peerage, a man once an Asiarch always
retaining the title, while his wife was called the Asiarchess, as we
find from the inscriptions. The Asiarchs were, in fact, the official
aristocracy of the province of Asia. They had assembled on this
occasion for the purpose of sitting in the local parliament and
presiding over the annual games in honour of Diana.[211] Their
interests and their honour were all bound up with the worship of the
goddess, and yet the preaching of St. Paul had told so powerfully upon
the whole province, that even among the very officials of the State
religion St. Paul had friends and supporters anxious to preserve his
life, and therefore sent him a message not to adventure himself into
the theatre. It is no wonder that Demetrius the silversmith roused his
fellow-craftsmen into activity and fanned the flame of their wrath,
for the worship of Diana of the Ephesians was indeed in danger when
the very men whose office bound them to its support were in league
with such an uncompromising opponent as this Paul of Tarsus. St. Luke
thus gives a glimpse of the constitution of Ephesus and of the
province of Asia in his time. He shows us the peculiar institution of
the Asiarchate, and then when we turn to the inscriptions which Mr.
Wood and other modern discoverers have unearthed, we find that the
Asiarchs occupy a most prominent position in them, vindicating in the
amplest manner the introduction of them by St. Luke as assembled at
Ephesus at this special season, and there interesting themselves in
the welfare of the great Apostle.[212]
[210] Aristarchus is described in the Martyrologies as the first
bishop of Thessalonica, and is said to have suffered martyrdom
under Nero. He is commemorated on August 4th.
[211] These local parliaments under the Roman Empire have been the
subject of much modern investigation at the hands of French and
German scholars. See for references to the authorities on the
point an article which I wrote in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for 1882.
[212] See the index to Lightfoot's _Ignatius and Polycarp_ for
extended references to the Asiarchate, and also Mommsen's _Roman
Provinces_ (Dickson's translation), vol. i., pp. 345-7.
But now there comes on the scene another official, whose title and
office have been the subject of many an illustration furnished by
modern research. The Jews who followed the mob into the theatre, when
they did not see St. Paul there, put forward one Alexander as their
spokesman.[213] This man has been by some identified with Alexander
the coppersmith, to whom St. Paul refers (2 Tim. iv. 14) when writing
to Timothy, then resident at Ephesus, as a man who had done much
injury to the Christian cause. He may have been well known as a
brother-tradesman by the Ephesian silversmiths, and he seems to have
been regarded by the Jews as a kind of leader who might be useful in
directing the rage of the mob against the Christians whom they hated.
The rioters, however, did not distinguish as clearly as the Jews would
have wished between the Christians and the Jews. They made the same
mistake as the Romans did for more than a century later, and
confounded Jews and Christians together. They were all, in any case,
opponents of idol worship and chiefly of their favourite goddess, and
therefore the sight of Alexander merely intensified their rage, so
much that for the space of two hours they continued to vociferate
their favourite cry, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians."
[213] The Ephesian mob four hundred years later displayed at the
third General Council held at Ephesus in 431 an extraordinary
power of keeping up the same cry for hours. See the story of the
Council as told by Hefele in the third volume of his _General
Councils_ (Clark's translation). Nothing will give such a vigorous
idea of the confusion which then prevailed at Ephesus as a glance
at Mansi's Acts of that Council. The cry "Anathema to Nestorius,"
the heretic against whom the Council declared, was maintained so
long and so continuously that one would imagine that orthodoxy
depended on strength of lungs.
Now, however, there appeared another official, whose title and
character have become famous through his action on this occasion:
"When the town-clerk had quieted the multitude, he saith, Ye men of
Ephesus, what man is there who knoweth not that the city of the
Ephesians is temple-keeper (or Neocoros) of the great Diana, and of
the image which fell down from Jupiter?" Here we have several terms
which have been illustrated and confirmed by the excavations of Mr.
Wood. The town-clerk or recorder is introduced, because he was the
chief executive officer of the city of Ephesus, and, as such,
responsible to the Roman authorities for the peace and order of the
city. The city of Ephesus was a free city, retaining its ancient laws
and customs like Athens and Thessalonica, but only on the condition
that these laws were effective and peace duly kept. Otherwise the
Roman authorities and their police would step in. These town-clerks or
recorders of Ephesus are known from this one passage in the Acts of
the Apostles, but they are still better known from the inscriptions
which have been brought to light at Ephesus. I have mentioned, for
instance, the immense inscription which Mr. Wood discovered in the
theatre commemorating the gift to the temple of Diana of a vast number
of gold and silver images made by one Vibius Salutarius. This
inscription lays down that the images should be kept in the custody of
the town-clerk or recorder when not required for use in the solemn
religious processions made through the city. The names of a great many
town-clerks have been recovered from the ruins of Ephesus, some of
them coming from the reign of Nero, the very period when this riot
took place. It is not impossible that we may yet recover the very name
of the town-clerk who gave the riotous mob this very prudent advice,
"Ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rash," which has made him
immortal. Then, again, a title for the city of Ephesus is used in this
pacific oration which is strictly historical, and such as would
naturally have been used by a man in the town-clerk's position. He
calls Ephesus the "temple-keeper," or "Neocoros," as the word
literally is, of the goddess Diana, and this is one of the most usual
and common titles in the lately discovered inscriptions. Ephesus and
the Ephesians were indeed so devoted to the worship of that deity and
so affected by the honour she conferred upon them that they delighted
to call themselves the temple-sweepers, or sextons, of the great
Diana's temple. In fact, their devotion to the worship of the goddess
so far surpassed that of ordinary cities that the Ephesians were
accustomed to subordinate their reverence for the Emperors to their
reverence for their religion, and thus in the decree passed by them
honouring Vibius Salutarius who endowed their temple with many
splendid gifts, to which we have already referred, they begin by
describing themselves thus: "In the presidency of Tiberius Claudius
Antipater Julianus, on the sixth day of the first decade of the month
Poseideon, it was resolved by the Council and the Public Assembly of
the Necori (of Artemis) and Lovers of Augustus." The Ephesians must
have been profoundly devoted to Diana's worship when in that age of
gross materialism they would dare to place any deity higher than that
of the reigning emperor, the only god in whom a true Roman really
believed; for unregenerate human nature at that time looked at the
things alone which are seen and believed in nothing else.
The rest of the town-clerk's speech is equally deserving of study from
every point of view. He gives us a glimpse of the Apostle's method of
controversy: it was wise, courteous, conciliatory. It did not hurt the
feelings or outrage the sentiments of natural reverence, which ought
ever to be treated with the greatest respect, for natural reverence is
a delicate plant, and even when directed towards a wrong object ought
to be most gently handled. "Ye have brought hither these men, which
are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess.[214] If
therefore Demetrius, and the craftsmen that are with him, have a
matter against any man, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls:
let them accuse one another." Modern research has thrown additional
light upon these words. The Roman system of provincial government
anticipated the English system of assize courts, moving from place to
place, introduced by Henry II. for the purpose of bringing justice
home to every man's door.[215] It was quite natural for the proconsul
of Asia to hold his court at the same time as the annual assembly of
the province of Asia and the great festival of Diana. The great
concourse of people rendered such a course specially convenient, while
the presence of the proconsul helped to keep the peace, as, to take a
well-known instance, the presence of Pontius Pilate at the great
annual Paschal feast at Jerusalem secured the Romans against any
sudden rebellion, and also enabled him to dispense justice after the
manner of an assize judge, to which fact we would find an allusion in
the words of St. Mark (xv. 6), "Now at the feast he used to release
unto them one prisoner, whom they asked of him."
[214] St. Paul's zeal never outran his discretion. He never
blasphemed or spoke lightly of ideas and names held sacred by his
hearers. I remember in our local ecclesiastical history an example
of the opposite course which has often found imitators. When
Charles Wesley first visited Dublin about the year 1747, he left
behind a zealous but very unwise preacher to continue his work.
His language was so violent that the mob were roused to burn his
meeting-house, which stood in Marlborough Street near the spot
where the Roman Catholic Cathedral now stands. He then took his
stand on Oxmantown Green in the northern suburbs, where he
preached in the open air. On Christmas Day he took the Incarnation
as his subject, and began, as St. Paul never would have done, by
crying aloud, "I curse and blaspheme all gods and goddesses in
heaven and earth, save the Babe that was born in Bethlehem and was
wrapped in swaddling clothes," whereupon the Dublin mob with their
ready wit in the matter of nick-names called the Methodists
swaddlers, a title which has ever since stuck to them in Ireland,
and is to this day commonly used by the Roman Catholics. This
seems an interesting illustration of the typical character of the
Acts.
[215] See Preface by Bishop Stubbs to Benedict of Peterborough,
_Gesta Regis Hen. II._, t. ii., pp. lxv.-lxxi. (Rolls Series);
Madox, _Hist. of Exchequer_, pp. 84-96, for an account of the rise
of the English Assize System; see Le Blant, _Les Actes des
Martyrs_, pp. 50-121, and _Marquardt's Röm. Staatsverwalt_, p. 365
about Roman assizes. There were eleven circuits in Asia.
It has been said, indeed, that St. Luke here puts into the
town-clerk's mouth words he could never have used, representing him as
saying "there are proconsuls" when, in fact, there was never more than
one proconsul in the province of Asia. Such criticism is of the
weakest character. Surely every man that ever speaks in public knows
that one of the commonest usages is to say there are judges or
magistrates, using the plural when one judge or magistrate may alone
be exercising jurisdiction! But there is another explanation, which
completely solves the difficulty and vindicates St. Luke's minute
accuracy. Three hundred years ago John Calvin, in his commentary,
noted the difficulty, and explained it by the supposition that the
proconsul had appointed deputies or assessors who held the courts in
his name. There is, however, a more satisfactory explanation. It was
the reign of Nero, and his brutal example had begun to debauch the
officials through the provinces. Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, was
disliked by Nero and by his mother as a possible candidate for the
imperial crown, being of the family of Augustus. Two of his
subordinates, Celer and Ælius, the collectors of the imperial revenue
in Asia, poisoned him, and as a reward were permitted to govern the
province, enjoying perhaps in common the title of proconsul and
exercising the jurisdiction of the office.[216] Finally, the tone of
the town-clerk's words as he ends his address is thoroughly that of a
Roman official. He feels himself responsible for the riot, and knows
that he may be called upon to account for it. Peace was what the Roman
authorities sought and desired at all hazards, and every measure which
threatened the peace, or every organisation, no matter how desirable,
a fire brigade even, which might conceivably be turned to purposes of
political agitation, was strictly discouraged.
[216] See Lewin's _St. Paul_, i. 337, 338.
The correspondence of Pliny with the Emperor Trajan some fifty years
or so later than this riot is the best commentary upon the
town-clerk's speech. We find, for instance, in Pliny's _Letters_, Book
X., No. 42, a letter telling about a fire which broke out in
Nicomedia, the capital of Bithynia, of which province Pliny was
proconsul. He wrote to the Emperor describing the damage done, and
suggesting that a fire brigade numbering one hundred and fifty men
might be instituted. The Emperor would not hear of it, however. Such
clubs or societies he considered dangerous, and so he wrote back a
letter which proves how continuous was Roman policy, how abhorrent to
the imperial authorities were all voluntary organisations which might
be used for the purposes of public agitation: "You are of opinion that
it would be proper to establish a company of fire-men in Nicomedia,
agreeably to what has been practised in several other cities. But it
is to be remembered that societies of this sort have greatly disturbed
the peace of the province in general and of those cities in
particular. Whatever name we give them, and for whatever purposes they
may be founded, they will not fail to form themselves into factious
assemblies, however short their meetings will be"; and so Pliny was
obliged to devise other measures for the security and welfare of the
cities committed to his charge.[217] The accidental burning of a city
would not be attributed to him as a fault, while the occurrence of a
street riot might be the beginning of a social war which would bring
down ruin upon the Empire at large.
[217] A similar jealousy of voluntary organisations is still
perpetuated in France under the code Napoleon, which largely
embodies Roman methods and ideas.
When the recorder of Ephesus had ended his speech he dismissed the
assembly, leaving to us a precious record illustrative of the methods
of Roman government, of the interior life of Ephesus in days long gone
by, and, above all else, of the thorough honesty of the writer whom
the Holy Spirit impelled to trace the earliest triumphs of the Cross
amid the teeming fields of Gentile paganism.