♦“Ααχιων” replaced with “Αχαιων”“The wordsΓαλλίωνος δε ἀνθυπατεύοντοςought to be rendered, with Heumann, Walch, Antiquities, Corinth,p.35., and Reichard, (as indeed is required by the context,) ‘when Gallio had been made Proconsul,’ or ‘on Gallio’s entering on the Proconsulship.’ (Kuinoel.) In the same sense it was also taken by Beza and Piscator; and thisappears to be the true one. The Jews, it seems, waited for the arrival of a new Proconsul to make their request, as thinking that they should then be less likely to meet with a refusal.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.600.)“‘Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogues.’ verse 17. In the8thverse we read that Crispus was the chief ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. And from this we may suppose that there were more than one synagogue in that city, or that there might be more than one ruler in the same synagogue; or that Crispus, after his conversion to Christianity, might have been succeeded by Sosthenes; but then we are at a loss to know who the people are that thus beat and misused him; the Greek printed copies tell us that they were the Gentiles; and those that read the text imagine, that when they perceived the neglect and disregard wherewith the proconsul received the Jews, they, to insult them more, fell upon the ruler of their synagogue, whether out of hatred to them, or friendship toSt.Paul, it makes no matter. But others think, that Sosthenes, however head of the synagogue, was nevertheless the friend ofSt.Paul, and that the other Jews, seeing themselves slighted by Gallio, might vent their malice upon him; for they suppose that this was the same Sosthenes, whose nameSt.Paul, in the beginning of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, written about three years after this time, joins with his own. This opinion, however, was not universally received, since, in the time of Eusebius, it was thought the Sosthenes mentioned in the epistle was one of the seventy disciples, and, consequently, could not be the chief of the synagogue at Corinth, twenty years after the death of Jesus Christ.” (Beausobre’s Annotations. Calmet’s Commentary and Dictionary.)“‘xviii.17.ἐπιλαβόμενοι δὲ πάντες οἱ ἝλληνεςThere is here some variation of reading, and no little question raised as to the true one; which consequently leaves the interpretation unsettled. Two ancientMSS.and versions omitοἱ Ἕλληνες, and others readοἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. As to the latter reading, it cannot be tolerated; for why shouldthe Jewshave beaten him? Neither is it likely that they would have taken such a liberty before so solemn a tribunal. The wordsοἱ Ἕλληνεςare thought by many critics, as Grotius, Mill, Pierce, Bengel, and Kuinoel, to be derived from the margin, like the last. Now those wereGentiles(say they) who beat Sosthenes; and hence some one wroteοἱ Ἕλληνες. As to the reason for the beating, it was to make the Jews go away the faster; and to this they were actuated partly by their hatred towards the Jews, and partly by a desire to please the Procurator.’ But this appears to be pressing too much on the wordἀπήλασεν, which has by no means any such meaning. Besides, it is strange that the wordsἝλληνεςshould have crept into nearly all theMSS; even into so manyearlyones. And, supposingἝλληνεςto be removed, what sense is to be given toπαντες? None (I think) satisfactory, or agreeable to the style of the New Testament. It must therefore be retained: and then the sense ofπάντεςwill be as follows: ‘all the Greeks, both Gentiles and Christians:’ which is so evident, that I am surprised the commentators should not have seen it. Some explain it of the Gentiles, and others of the Gentile Christians.Bothindeed had reason to take umbrage at the intolerance and bitter animosity of the Jews. It is not likely that any should have joined in the beating, merely to please the Proconsul, who was not a man to be gratified by such a procedure. So that the gnomes brought forward by Grotius on the baseassentatioof courtiers, are not here applicable.“Byἔτυπτονis merely to be understoodbeating, orthumping him with their fists, as he passed along. Anythingmorethan that, we cannot suppose they would have ventured upon, or the Proconsul have tolerated.”“Byτούτων, (verse 17,) we may, I think, understand both the accusation brought forward, and the cuffs which followed; to neither of which the Proconsul paid much attention; and this from disgust at the litigious conduct of the Jews; as also from the custom, mentioned by Pricaeus, of the Roman governors, to pass by any conduct which did not directly tend to degrade the dignity of the Roman name, or weaken its influence, in order that the yoke might be as easy as possible to the provincials.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.pp.603–605.)CORINTH——CENCHREA.Romansxvi.1. Actsxviii.18.His character having been thus vindicated, and his safety thus assured him by the supreme civil authority, Paul resided for a long time in Corinth, steadily pursuing his apostolic work, without any direct hindrance or molestation from the Jews. Thereis no reason to suppose that he confined all his labor entirely to the city; on the contrary, it is quite certain, that the numerous smaller gospel fields throughout the adjacent country, must have attracted his attention, and it appears, from the commencement of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that many throughout all Achaia had received the gospel, and had been numbered among the saints. Corinth, however, remained the great center of his operations in Greece, and from this place he soon after directed another epistle to one of his apostolic charges in Macedonia,——the church of Thessalonica. Since his former epistle had been received by them, there had arisen a new occasion for his anxious attention to their spiritual condition, and in his second letter he alludes distinctly to the fact that there had been misrepresentations of his opinion, and seems to imply that a letter had been forged in his name, and presented to them, as containing a new and more complete account of the exact time of the expected coming of Christ, to which he had only vaguely alluded in the first. In the second chapter of his second epistle, he renews his warning against these delusions about the coming of Christ, alluding to the fact, that they had been deceived and disturbed by misstatements on this subject, and had been led into error, both by those who pretended to beinspired, and by those who attempted to show byprediction, that the coming of Christ was at hand, and also bythe forged epistlepretending to contain Paul’s own more decisive opinions on the subject. He exhorts them to “let no man deceive them by any of these means.” He warns them moreover, against any that exalt themselves against the doctrines which he had taught them, and denounces all false and presumptuous teachers in very bitter terms. After various warnings against these and all disorderly persons among them, he refers to his own behavior while with them, as an example for them to follow, and reminds them how blamelessly and honestly he behaved himself. He did not presume on his apostolic office, to be an idler, or to eat any man’s bread for naught, but steadily worked with his own hands, lest he should be chargeable to any one of them; and this he did, not because his apostolic office did not empower him to live without manual labor, and to depend on those to whom he preached for his means of subsistence, but because he wished to make himself, and his fellow-laborers, Silas and Timothy, examples for their behavior after he was gone. Yet it seemed that, notwithstanding the pains he had taken to inculcatean honest and industrious course, several persons among them had assumed the office of teaching and reproving, and had considered themselves thereby excused from doing anything for their own support. In the conclusion, he refers them distinctly to his own signature and salutation, which authenticate every epistle which he writes, and without which, no letter was to be esteemed genuine. This he specifies, no doubt, for the sake of putting them on their guard against the repetition of any such deception as had been lately practised on them in his name.HIS VOYAGE BACK TO THE EAST.Soon after Paul had written his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he left Corinth, in the spring of A. D. 56, as it is commonly calculated, and after bidding the brethren farewell, journeyed back to Asia, from whose shores he had now been absent not less than three years. On his return journey, he was accompanied by his two acquaintances and fellow-laborers, Aquilas and Priscilla, who were now his most intimate friends, and henceforth were always esteemed among the important aids of the apostolic enterprise. Journeying eastward across the isthmus, they came to Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, and at the head of the great Saronic gulf, about seven miles from the city itself. At this place Paul discharged himself of the obligation of a vow, which he had made some time before, in conformity with a common Jewish custom of thus giving force to their own sense of gratitude for the accomplishment of any desired object. He had vowed to let his hair grow until some unknown end was attained, and now, having seen the prayers which sanctioned that vow granted, he cut off his hair in token of the joyful completion of the enterprise on which he had thus solemnly and formally invoked the blessing of heaven. The actual purpose of this vow is not recorded,——but when the occasion on which he thus exonerated himself is considered, it seems most reasonable to suppose that now, embarking from the shores of Europe, after he had there passed so many years of very peculiar labor and trials, he was thus celebrating the prosperous and happy achievment of his first great western mission, and that this vow had been made for his safe return, when he first sailed from the eastern coast of the Aegean, at Alexandria Troas.He sailed from Cenchreae to Ephesus, a great city of Ionic Asia, which had never been the scene of his apostolic labors, though he had traversed much of the country around it; for itwill be remembered, that on his last journey through Asia Minor, when he had passed over Galatia and Phrygia, he was about to enter Asia Proper, but was hindered by a special impulse of the Spirit, which sent him in a different direction. But having thus achieved his great western enterprise, there was now no longer any more important commission to prevent him from gratifying his eyes with a sight of this very interesting region, and making here an experimental effort to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel through the numerous, wealthy, refined and populous cities of this, the most flourishing and civilized country in the world. He did not intend, however, to make anything more than a mere call at Ephesus; for the great object of his voyage from Europe was to return to Jerusalem and Syria, and give to his brethren, a full statement of all the interesting particulars of his long and remarkable mission in Macedonia and Greece. But he took occasion to vary this eastern route, so as to effect as much good as possible by the way; and therefore embarked first for Ephesus, where he landed with Aquilas and Priscilla, whom he left there, while he continued on his journey, southeastwards. He stopped with them however, a few days, with a view to open this new field of labor with them; and going into the synagogue, discoursed with the Jews. He was so well received by his hearers, that he was earnestly besought to prolong his stay among them; but he excused himself for his refusal of their kind invitation, by stating the great object which he had in view in leaving Europe at that particular time:——“I must by all means keep this coming feast at Jerusalem; but I will return to you,——God willing.” And bidding them farewell, he sailed away from Ephesus to Caesarea, on the coast of Palestine, where he landed. Thence he went up to Jerusalem, to salute the church. In this part of the history of Paul, Luke seems to be exceedingly brief; perhaps because he was not then with him, and had never received from him any account of this journey. There is therefore no way of ascertaining what was the particular motive or design of this visit. It would appear, however, from the very hurried manner in which the visit was noticed, that it was exceedingly brief, and his departure thence may, as Calvin conjectures, have been hastened by the circumstance, that possibly the business on which he went thither did not succeed according to his wishes. At any rate, there seems to have been something very mysterious about the whole matter, else there would not have been this very studied concealment ofthe motives and details of a journey, which he announced to the brethren of the church at Ephesus, asabsolutely necessaryfor him to perform. This also may have been concealed for the same reason, which has been conjectured to have caused the visit to be so short, as would seem from the manner in which it is noticed. From Jerusalem he went down to Antioch, by what route is not specified,——but probably by way of Caesarea and the sea.“xviii.22.Caesarea.A town on the sea-coast. [See the note onp.173.]Ἀναβὰς, ‘and having gone up.’ Whither? Some commentators, as Camerarius, De Dieu, Wolf, Calov., Heumann, Doddridge, Thaleman, Beck, and Kuinoel, refer it toCaesarea. But this requires the confirmation of examples. And we musttake for grantedthat the city was built high above the port, (which is not likely,) or that thechurchwas so situated; which would be extremely frigid. Neither is it certain that therewasa church. Besides, how can the expressionκαταβαίνωbe proper, as used of traveling from a seaport-town, like Caesarea, to Antioch? I therefore prefer the mode of interpretation adopted by some ancient and many modern commentators, as Beza, Grotius, Mor., Rosenmueller, Reichard, Schott, Heinrichs, and others, who supplyεἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα. This may indeed seem somewhat harsh; yet it must be remembered that not a few things are so in the New Testament; andἀναβαίνωis there often used absolutely of going up to Jerusalem, andκαταβαίνωof going from thence. Nor is this unexampled in the classical writers. Xenophon uses the word in the very same sense, of those going from Greece to the capital of Persia. See Anabasis 1, 1, 2. Hist. 2, 1. 9, 10. Anabasis 1, 4, 12. Hist. 4, 1, 2. 1, 5, 1. 1, 4, 2. and many other passages referred to by Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophon in voce. Besides, as the wordsεἰς Ἱεροσόλυμαhave just preceded, it is not very harsh to repeat them. Kuinoel, indeed, and some others, treat those words as not genuine; but their opinion rests on mere suspicion, unsupported by any proof.” (Bloomfield Annotations.Vol. IV.p.607.)From the very brief and general manner in which the incidents of this visit of Paul to the eastern continent are commemorated, the apostolic historian is left to gather nothing but the most naked circumstances, of the route pursued, and from the results, it is but fair to conclude that nothing of consequence happened to the apostle, as his duties consisted merely in a review and completion of the work he had gone over before. Luke evidently did not accompany Paul in this Asian journey, and he therefore only states the general direction of the apostle’s course, without a single particular. He says that Paul, after making♦some stay in Antioch,——where, no doubt he greatly comforted the hearts of the brethren, by the glad tidings of the triumphs of Christ in Europe,——went in regular order over the regions of Galatia, and Phrygia, everywhere confirming the disciples. Beyond this, no incident whatever is preserved; yet here great amplification of the sacred record might be made, from the amusing narrative of that venerable monkish story-teller, who assumes the name of Abdias Babylonius. But from the specimens of his narrative already given, in the lives of Andrew andJohn, the reader will easily apprehend that they contain nothing which deserves to be intruded into the midst of the honest, authentic statements, of the original and genuine apostolic history; and all these with many other similar inventions are wholly dismissed from the life of Paul, of whose actions such ample records have been left in the writings of himself and his companions, that it is altogether more necessary for the biographer to condense into a modernized form, with proper illustrations, the materials presented on the authority of inspiration, than to prolong the narrative with tedious inventions. In this part of the apostolic history, all that Luke records is, that Paul, after the before-mentioned survey of the inland countries of Asia Minor, came down to the western shore, and visited Ephesus, according to the promise which♠he had made them at his farewell, a few months before. Since that hasty visit made in passing, some events important to the gospel cause had happened among them. An Alexandrine Jew named Apollos, a man of great Biblical learning, (as many of the Jews of his native city were,) and indued also with eloquence,——came to Ephesus, and there soon distinguished himself as a religious teacher. Of the doctrines of Jesus Christ and his apostles, indeed, he had never heard; but he had somewhere been made acquainted with the peculiar reforming principles of his great forerunner, John the Baptist, and had been baptized, probably by some one of his disciples. With great fervor and power, he discoursed learnedly of the things of the Lord, in the synagogue at Ephesus, and of course, was brought under the notice of Aquilas and Priscilla, whom Paul had left to occupy that important field, while he was making his southeastern tour. They took pains to draw Apollos into their acquaintance, and found him, like every truly learned man, very ready to learn, even from those who were his inferiors in most departments of sacred knowledge. From them he heard with great interest and satisfaction, the peculiar and striking truths revealed in Jesus, and at once professing his faith in this new revelation, went forth again among the Jews, replenished with a higher learning and a diviner spirit. After teaching for some time in Ephesus, he was disposed to try his new powers in some other field; and proposing to journey into Achaia, his two Christian friends gave him letters of introduction and recommendation to the brethren of the church in Corinth. While he was there laboring with great efficiency in the gospel cause, Paul returning from his great apostolic survey of the inland and upperregions of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus. Entering on this work of perfecting and uniting the results of the various irregular efforts made by the different persons, who had before labored there, he found, among those who professed to hold the doctrines of a new revelation, about a dozen men, who knew very little of the great doctrines which Paul had been in the habit of preaching. One of his first questions to them, of course, was whether they had yet received that usual convincing sign of the Christian faith,——the Holy Spirit. To which they answered in some surprise, that they had not yet heard that there was any Holy Spirit;——thus evidently showing that they knew nothing about any such sign or its effects. Paul, in his turn considerably surprised, at this remarkable ignorance of a matter of such high importance, was naturally led to ask what kind of initiation they had received into the new dispensation; and learning from them, that they had only been baptized according to the baptism of John,——instantly assured them of the incompleteness of that revelation of the truth. “John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people that they must believe on him that should come after him,——that is on Christ Jesus.” Hearing this, they consented to receive from the apostle of Jesus, the renewal of the sign of faith, which they had formerly known as the token of that partial revelation made by John; and they were therefore baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,——a form of words which of course had never been pronounced over them before. Paul, then laying his hands on them, invoked the influence of the Holy Spirit, which was then immediately manifested, by the usual miraculous gifts which accompanied its effusion.♦removed duplicate word “some”♠removed duplicate word “he”“xviii.24.Apollos.A name contracted fromApollonius, (which is read in the Cod. Cant.) as Epaphras from Epaphroditus, and Artemas from Artemonius. Of this Apollonius, mention is also made in 1 Corinthiansi.12.iii.5seq.where Paul speaks of the labor he underwent in the instruction of the Corinthians. (1 Corinthiansiv.6.xvi.12.)Γένει,by birth,i. e.country; as in 18, 2. The Jews of Alexandria were eminent for Biblical knowledge. That most celebrated city of Egypt abounded with men of learning, both Jews and Gentiles.” Kuinoel. (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.608.)“TheBaptism of Johnis put, by synecdoche, for thewhole of John’s ordinances. See the note on Matthewxxi.25. (Kuinoel.) It is generally supposed that he had been baptized by John himself: but this must have been twenty years before; and it is not probable that during that time he should have acquired no knowledge of Christianity. It should rather seem that he had been baptized by one of John’s disciples; and perhaps not very long before the time here spoken of.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.610.)“With respect to thelettershere mentioned, they were written for the purpose of encouraging Apollos, and recommending him to the brethren. This ancient ecclesiastical custom of writing letters of recommendation, (which seems to have originated in the necessary caution to be observed in times of persecution, and arose out of the interrupted and tardy intercourse which, owing to their great distance from eachother, subsisted between the Christians,) has been well illustrated by a tract of Ferrarius de Epistolis Ecclesiasticis, referred to by Wolf.” (Bloomfield.Vol. IV.p.611.)“Ephesus was the metropolis of proconsular Asia. It was situated at the mouth of the river Cayster, on the shore of the Aegean sea, in that part anciently called Ionia, (but now Natolir,) and was particularly celebrated for the temple of Diana, which had been erected at the common expense of the inhabitants of Asia Proper, and was reputed one of the seven wonders of the world. In the time of Paul, this city abounded with orators and philosophers; and its inhabitants, in their gentile state, were celebrated for their idolatry and skill in magic, as well as for their luxury and lasciviousness. Ephesus is now under the dominion of the Turks, and is in a state of almost total ruin, being reduced to fifteen poor cottages, (not erected exactly on its original site,) and its once flourishing church is now diminished tothreeilliterate Greeks. (Revelationii.6.) In the time of the Romans, Ephesus was the metropolis of Asia. The temple of Diana is said to have been four hundred and twenty-five feet long, two hundred and twenty broad, and to have been supported by one hundred and twenty-seven pillars of marble, seventy feet high, whereof twenty-seven were most beautifully wrought, and all the rest polished. One Ctesiphon, a famous architect, planned it, and with so much art and curiosity, that it took two hundred years to finish it. It was set on fire seven times; once on the very same day that Socrates was poisoned, four hundred years before Christ.” (Horne’s Introduction. Whitby’s Table. Wells’s Geography. Williams on Pearson.)After this successful effort to confirm and complete the conversions already effected, Paul went about his apostolic labors in the usual way,——going into the synagogue, and speaking boldly, disputing the antiquated sophistry of the Jews, and urging upon all, the doctrines of the new revelation. In this department of labor, he continued for the space of three months; but at the end of that time, he found that many obstacles were thrown in the way of the truth by the stubborn adherents of the established forms of old Judaism, who would not allow that the lowly Jesus was the Messiah for whom their nation had so long looked as the restorer of Israel. Leaving the hardened and obstinate Jews, he therefore, according to his old custom in such cases of the rejection of the gospel by them, withdrew from their society, and thenceforth went with those who had believed among the more candid Greeks, who, with a truly enlightened and philosophical spirit, held their minds open to the reception of new truths, even though they might not happen to accord with those which were sanctioned to them by the prejudices of education. After leaving the synagogue, his new place of preaching and religious instruction was the school of one Tyrannus,——doubtless one of those philosophical institutions with which every Grecian city abounded. This continued his field of exertion for two years, during which his fame became very widely established,——all the inhabitants of Ionic and Aeolic Asia, having heard of the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Among the causes and effects of this general notoriety, was the circumstance, that many miraculous cures were wrought by the hands of Paul; and many began even to attach a divineregard to his person;——handkerchiefs being brought to the sick from his body, which, on application to those afflicted, either with bodily or mental diseases, produced a perfect cure. This matter becoming generally known and talked of, throughout Ephesus, became the occasion of a ludicrous accident, which occurred to some persons who entertained the mistaken notion, that this faculty of curing diseases was transferable, and might be exercised by anybody that had enterprise enough to take the business in hand, and say over the form of words that seemed to be so efficacious in the mouth of Paul. A set of conjurers of Jewish origin, the seven sons of Sceva, who went about professedly following the trade of casting out devils, straightway caught up this new improvement on their old tricks, (for so they esteemed the divinely miraculous power of the apostle,) and soon found an opportunity to experiment with this, which they considered a valuable addition to their old stock of impositions. So, calling over the miserable possessed subject of their foolish experiment, they said——“We exorcise you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.” But the devil was not slow to perceive the difference between this second-hand, plagiaristic mode of operation, and the commanding tone of divine authority with which the demoniacal possessions were treated by the apostle of Jesus. He therefore quite turned their borrowed mummery into a jest, and cried out through the mouth of the possessed man,——“Jesus I know, and Paul I know:——but who are ye?” Under the impulse of the frolicsome, mischievous spirit, the man upon whom they were playing their conjuring tricks, jumped up at once, and fell upon these rash doctors with all his might, and with all the energy of a truly crazy demoniac, beat the whole seven, tore their clothes off from them, and threshed them to such effect, that they were glad to stop their mummery, and make off as fast as possible, but did not escape till they were naked and wounded. The affair of course, was soon very generally talked of, and the story made an impression, on the whole, decidedly favorable to the true source of that miraculous agency, which, when foolishly tampered with, had produced such appalling results. Many, among both Jews and Greeks, were thereby led to repentance and faith, and more particularly those who had been in the way of practising these arts of imposition. A very general alarm prevailed among all the conjurers, and many came and confessed the mean tricks by which they had hitherto maintained their reputation as controllers of the powers of the invisibleworld. Many who had also, at great expense of time and money, acquired the arts of imposition, brought the costly books in which were contained all the mysterious details of their magical mummery, and burned them publicly, without regard to their immense estimated pecuniary value, which was not less than nine thousand dollars. In short, the results of this apparently trifling occurrence, followed up by the zealous preaching of Paul, effected a vast amount of good, so that the word of God mightily grew and prevailed.EPHESUS.——Ruins of the Temple of Diana.Ephesiansi.1. Revelationii.1, 7.“In Actsxx.31, the apostle says, that for the space of three years he preached at Ephesus. Grotius and Whitby hold that these three years are to be reckoned from his first coming to Ephesus,xviii.19; that he does not specify his being in any other city; and that when it is said here, ‘So that all Asia heard the word,’xix.40, it arose from the concourse that, on a religious account, continually assembled in that city. The Jews also, from different parts of Asia, were induced by commerce, or obliged by the courts of judicature, to frequent it. Other commentators contend that, as only two years, with three months in the synagogue, are here mentioned, the remaining three-quarters of a year were partly engaged in a progress through the neighboring provinces. (Elsley, from Lightfoot and Doddridge.)“While he was at Ephesus, ‘God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons,’&c.&c.Acts♦xix.11, 12.Σιμικίνθιον,aprons, is slightly changed from the Latinsemicinctum, which workmen put before them when employed at their occupations, to keep their clothes from soiling. The difference which Theophylact and Oecumenius make between these andσουδάρια, is, that the latter are applied to the head, as a cap or veil, and the former to the hands as a handkerchief. ‘They carry them,’ says Oecumenius, ‘in their hands, to wipe off moisture from their face, as tears,’”&c.&c.(Calmet’s Commentary.)♦removed spurious “v.”“‘And they counted the price of them, [the books,] and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver,’ verse 19——αργυριονis used generally in the Old Testament,LXX.for the shekel, in value about 2s.6d., or the total 6250l.as Numbersvii.85. Deuteronomyxxii.19. 2 Kingsxv.20.Grotius.If it means the drachma, as more frequently used by the Greeks at 9d.each, the sum will be 1875l.” [$9000.] Doddridge. Elsley’s Annotations. (Williams on Pearson,pp.53–55.)THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.There is hardly one of the writings of Paul, about the date of which there has been so much discussion, or so many opinions as this; but the results of all the elaborate investigations and argumentations of the learned, still leave this interesting chronological point in such doubt, that this must be pronounced about the most uncertain in date, of all the Pauline epistles. It may however, without any inconsistency with the historical narrative of the Acts, or with any passages in the other epistles, be safely referred to the period of this residence in Ephesus, probably to the later part of it. The epistle itself contains no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to the place in which he was occupied at the time of writing, and only bare probabilities can therefore be stated on it,——nor can any decisive objection be made to any one of six opinions which have been strongly urged. Some pronounce itvery decidedly to have been the first of all the epistles written by Paul, and maintain that he wrote it soon after his first visit to them, at some time during the interval between Paul’s departure from Galatia, and his departure from Thessalonica. Others date it at the time of his imprisonment in Rome, according to the common subscription of the epistle. Against this last may, however, perhaps be urged his reproof to the Galatians, that they “wereso soonremoved from him that called them to the grace of Christ,”——an expression nevertheless, too vague to form any certain basis for a chronological conclusion. The great majority of critics refer it to the period of his stay in Ephesus,——a view which entirely accords with the idea, that it must have been written soon after Paul had preached to them; for on his last journey to Ephesus, he had passed through Galatia, as already narrated, confirming the churches. Some time had, no doubt, intervened since his preaching to them, sufficient at least to allow many heresies and difficulties to arise among them, and to pervert them from the purity of the truth, as taught to them by him. Certain false teachers had been among them since his departure, inculcating on all believers in Christ, the absolute necessity of a minute and rigid observance of Mosaic forms, for their salvation. They also directly attacked the apostolical character and authority of Paul,——declaring his opinion to be of no weight whatever, and to be opposed to that of the true original apostles of Jesus. These, Paul meets with great force in the very beginning of the epistle, entering at once into a particular account of the mode of his first entering the apostleship,——showing that it was not derived from the other apostles, but from the special commission of Christ himself, miraculously given. He also shows that he had, on this very question of Judaical rituals, conferred with the apostles at Jerusalem, and had received the sanction of their approbation in that course of open communion which he had before followed, on his own inspired authority, and had ever since maintained, in the face of what he deemed inconsistencies in the conduct of Peter. He then attacks the Galatians themselves, in very violent terms, for their perversion of that glorious freedom into which he had brought the Christian doctrine, and fills up the greater part of the epistle with reproofs of these errors.His argument against the doctrines of the servile Judaizers is made up in his favorite mode of demonstration, by simile and metaphor, representing the Christian system under the form ofthe offspring of Abraham, and afterwards images the freedom of the true believers in Jesus, in the exalted privilege of the descendants of Sara, while those enslaved to forms are presented as analogous in their condition to the children of Hagar. He earnestly exhorts them, therefore, to stand fast in the freedom to which Christ has exalted them, and most emphatically condemns all observance of circumcision. Thus pointing out to them, the purely spiritual nature of that covenant, of which they were now the favored subjects, he urges them to a truly spiritual course of life, bidding them aim at the attainment of a perfect moral character, and makes the conclusion of the epistle eminently practical in its direction. He speaks of this epistle as being a testimony of the very particular interest which he feels in their spiritual prosperity, because, (what appears contrary to his practice,) he has written it with his own hand. To the very last, he is very bitter against those who are aiming to bring them back to the observance of circumcision, and denounces those as actuated only by a base desire to avoid that persecution which they might expect from the Jews, if they should reject the Mosaic ritual. Referring to the cross of Christ as his only glory, he movingly alludes to the marks of his conformity to that standard, bearing as he does in his own body, the scars of the wounds received from the scourges of his Philippian persecutors. He closes without any mention of personal salutations, and throughout the whole makes none of those specifications of names, with which most of his other epistles abound. In the opening salutation, he merely includes with himself those “brethren that are with him,” which seems to imply that they knew who those brethren were, in some other way,——perhaps, because he had but lately been among them with those same persons as his assistants in the ministry.On this very doubtful point, I have taken the views adopted by Witsius, Louis Cappel, Pearson, Wall, Hug and Hemsen. The notion that it was written at Rome is supported by Theodoret, Lightfoot, and Paley,——of course making it a late epistle. On the contrary, Michaelis makes it the earliest of all, and dates it in the year 49, at some place on Paul’s route from Troas to Thessalonica. Marcion and Tertullian also supposed it to be one of the earliest epistles. Benson thinks it was written during Paul’s first residence in Corinth. Lenfant and Beausobre, followed by Lardner, conjecture it to have been written either at Corinth or at Ephesus, during his first visit, either in A. D. 52, or 53. Fabricius and Mill date it A. D. 58, at some place on Paul’s route to Jerusalem. Chrysostom and Theophylact, date it before the epistle to the Romans. Grotius thinks it was written about the same time. From all which, the reader will see the justice of my conclusion, that nothing at all is known with any certainty about the matter.THE EPHESIAN MOB.Paul having now been a resident in Ephesus for nearly threeyears, and having seen such glorious results of his labors, soon began to think of revisiting some of his former fields of missionary exertion, more especially those Grecian cities of Europe which had been such eventful scenes to him, but a few years previous. He designed to go over Macedonia and Achaia, and then to visit Jerusalem; and when communicating these plans to his friends at Ephesus, he remarked to them in conclusion——“And after that, I must also visit Rome.” He therefore sent before him into Macedonia, as the heralds of his approach, his former assistant, Timothy, and another helper not before mentioned, Erastus, who is afterwards mentioned as the treasurer of the city of Corinth. But Paul himself still waited in Asia for a short time, until some other preliminaries should be arranged for his removal. During this incidental delay arose the most terrible commotion that had ever yet been excited against him, and one which very nearly cost him his life.It should be noticed that the conversion of so large a number of the heathen, through the preaching of Paul, had struck directly at the foundation of a very thriving business carried on in Ephesus, and connected with the continued prevalence and general popularity of that idolatrous worship, for which the city was so famous. Ephesus, as is well known, was the chief seat of the peculiar worship of that great Asian deity, who is now known, throughout all the world, where the apostolic history is read, by the name of “Diana of the Ephesians.” It is perfectly certain, however, that this deity had no real connection, either in character or in name, with that Roman goddess of the chase and of chastity, to whom the name Diana properly belongs. The true classic goddess Diana was a virgin, according to common stories, considered as the sister of Apollo, and was worshiped as the beautiful and youthful goddess of the chase, and of that virgin purity of which she was supposed to be an instance, though some stories present an exception to this part of her character. Upon her head, in most representations of her, was pictured a crescent, which was commonly supposed to show, that she was also the goddess of the moon; but a far more sagacious and rational supposition refers the first origin of this sign to a deeper meaning. But when the mythologies of different nations began to be compared and united, she was identified with the goddess of the moon, and with that Asian goddess who bore among the Greeks the name ofArtemis, which is in fact the name given byLuke, as the title of the great goddess of the Ephesians. ThisArtemis, however, was a deity as diverse in form, character and attributes, from the classic Diana, as from any goddess in all the systems of ancient mythology; and they never need have been confounded, but for the perverse folly of those who were bent, in spite of all reason, to find in the divinities of the eastern polytheism, the perfect synonyms to the objects of western idolatry. The Asian and Ephesian goddess Artemis, had nothing whatever to do with hunting nor with chastity. She was not represented as young, nor beautiful, nor nimble, nor as the sister of Apollo, but as a vast gigantic monster, with a crown of towers, with lions crouching upon her shoulders, and a great array of pictured or sculptured eagles and tigers over her whole figure; and her figure was also strangely marked by a multitude of breasts in front. Under this monstrous figure, which evidently was no invention of the tasteful Greeks, but had originated in the debasing and grotesque idolatry of the orientals, Artemis of the Ephesians was worshiped as the goddess of the earth, of fertility, of cities, and as the universal principle of life and wealth. She was known among the Syrians by the name of Ashtaroth, and was among the early objects of Hebrew idolatry. When the Romans, in their all-absorbing tolerance of idolatry, began to introduce into Italy the worship of the eastern deities, this goddess was also added there, but not under the name of Diana. The classic scholar is familiar with the allusions to this deity, worshiped under the name of Cybele, Tellus and other such, and in all the later poets of Rome, she is a familiar object, as “the tower-crowned Cybele.” This was the goddess worshiped in many of the Grecian cities of Asia Minor, which, at their first colonization, had adopted this aboriginal goddess of those fertile regions, of whose fertility, civilization, agricultural and commercial wealth, she seemed the fit and appropriate personification. But in none of these Asian cities was she worshiped with such peculiar honors and glories as in Ephesus, the greatest city of Asia Minor. Here was worshiped a much cherished image of her, which was said to have fallen from heaven, called from that circumstance theDiopetos; which here was kept in that most splendid temple, which is even now proverbial as having been one of the wonders of the ancient world. Being thus the most famous seat of her worship, Ephesus also became the center of a great manufacture and trade in certain curious little images or shrines, representing this goddess, whichwere in great request, wherever her worship was regarded, being considered as the genuine and legitimate representatives, as well as representations of the Ephesian deity.This explanation will account for the circumstances related by Luke, as ensuing in Ephesus, on the success of Paul’s labors among the heathen, to whose conversion his exertions had been wholly devoted during the two last years of his stay in Ephesus. In converting the Ephesians from heathenism, he was guilty of no ordinary crime. He directly attacked a great source of profit to a large number of artizans in the city, who derived their whole support from the manufacture of those little objects of idolatry, which, of course, became of no value to those who believed Paul’s doctrine,——that “those were no gods which were made with hands.” This new doctrine therefore, attracted very invidious notice from those who thus found their dearest interests very immediately and unfortunately affected, by the progress made by its preacher in turning away the hearts of Ephesians from their ancient reverence for the shrines of Artemis; and they therefore listened with great readiness to Demetrius, one of their number, when he proposed to remedy the difficulty. He showed them in a very clear, though brief address, that “the craft was in danger,”——that warning cry which so often bestirs the bigoted in defence of the object of their regard; and after hearing his artful address, they all, full of wrath, with one accord raised a great outcry, in the usual form of commendation of the established idolatry of their city,——“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This noise being heard by others, and of course attracting attention, every one who distinguished the words, by a sort of patriotic impulse, was driven to join in the cry, and presently the whole city was in an uproar;——a most desirable condition of things, of course, for those who wished to derive advantage from a popular commotion. All bawling this senseless cry, with about as much idea of the occasion of the disturbance as could be expected from such a mob, the huddling multitudes learning the general fact, that the grand object of the tumult was to do some mischief to the Christians, and looking about for some proper person to be made the subject of public opinion, fell upon Gaius and Aristarchus of Macedonia, two traveling companions of Paul, who happened to be in the way, and dragged them to the theater, whither the whole mob rushed at once, as to a desirable scene for any act of confusion and folly which they might choose to commit. Paul, with a lion-like spirit,caring naught for the mob, proposed to go in and make a speech to them, but his friends, with far more prudence and cool sense than he,——knowing that an assembly of the people, roaring some popular outcry, is no more a subject of reason than so many raging wild beasts,——prevented him from going into the theater, where he would no doubt have been torn to pieces, before he could have opened his mouth. Some of the great magistrates of Asia, too, who were friendly to him, hearing of his rash intentions, sent to him a very urgent request, that he would not venture himself among the mob. Meanwhile the outcry continued,——the theater being crowded full,——and the whole city constantly pouring out to see what was the matter, and every soul joining in the religious and patriotic shout, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” And so they went on, every one, of course, according to the universal and everlasting practice on such occasions, making all the noise he could, but not one, except the rascally silversmiths, knowing what upon earth they were all bawling there for. Still this ignorance of the object of the assembly kept nobody still; but all, with undiminished fervor, kept plying their lungs to swell the general roar. As it is described in the very graphic and picturesque language of Luke,——“Some cried one thing, and some, another; for the whole assembly was confused;——and the more knew not wherefore they were come together,”——which last circumstance is a very common difficulty in such assemblies, in all ages. At last, searching for some other persons as proper subjects to exercise their religious zeal upon, they looked about upon the Jews, who were always a suspected class among the heathen, and seized one Alexander, who seems to have been one of the Christian converts, for the Jews thrust him forward as a kind of scapegoat for themselves. Alexander made the usual signs soliciting their attention to his words; but as soon as the people understood that he was a Jew, they all drowned his voice with the general cry, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and this they kept up steadily for two whole hours, as it were with one voice. Matters having come to this pass, the recorder of the city came forward, and having hushed the people,——who had some reverence for the lawful authorities, that fortunately were not responsible to them,——and made them a very sensible speech, reminding them that since no one doubted the reverence of the Ephesians for the goddess Artemis, and for theDiopetos, there surely was no occasion for all this disturbance to demonstrate a fact that every body knew.He told them that the men against whom they were raising this disturbance had neither robbed their temples nor blasphemed the goddess; so that if Demetrius and his fellow-craft had anything justly against these men, as having injured their business, they had their proper remedy at law. He hinted to them also that they were all liable to be called to account for this manifest breach of Roman law, and this defiance of the majesty of the Roman government;——a hint which brought most of them to their senses; for all who had anything to lose, dreaded the thought of giving occasion to the awfully remorseless government of the province, to fine them, as they certainly would be glad to do on any valid excuse. They all dispersed, therefore, with no more words.“‘Silver shrines,’ verse 24. The heathens used to carry the images of their gods in procession from one city to another. This was done in a chariot which was solemnly consecrated for that employment, and by the Romans styledThensa, that is,the chariot of their gods. But besides this, it was placed in a box or shrine, calledFerculum. Accordingly, when the Romans conferred divine honors on their great men, alive or dead, they had theCircen games, and in them theThensaandFerculum, thechariotand theshrine, bestowed on them; as it is related of Julius Caesar. This Ferculum among the Romans did not differ much from the GraecianΝαὸς,a little chapel, representing the form of a temple, with an image in it, which, being set upon an altar, or any other solemn place, having the doors opened, the image was seen by the spectators either in a standing or sitting posture. An old anonymous scholiast upon Aristotle’s Rhetoric,lib. i.c. 15, has these words:Ναοποιοὶ οἱ τοὺς ναοὺς ποιοῦσι, ἤτοι εἱκονοστάσια, τινα μικρὰ ξύλινα ἅ πωλοῦσι, observing theναοιhere to beεικονοστάσια,chaplets, with images in them, of wood, or metal, (as here ofsilver,) which they made and sold, as in verse 25, they are supposed to do. Athenaeus speaks of theκαδισκος, ‘which,’ says he ‘is a vessel wherein they place their images of Jupiter.’ The learned Casaubon states, that ‘these images were put in cases, which were made like chapels. (Deipnos.lib. ii.p.500.) SoSt.Chrysostom likens them to ‘little cases, or shrines.’ Dion says of the Roman ensign, that it was a little temple, and in it a golden eagle, (Ρωμαικ,lib. 40.) And in another place: ‘There was a little chapel of Juno, set upon a table.’Ρωμαικ,lib. 39.This is the meaning of the tabernacle of Moloch, Actsvii.43, where by theσκηνη,tabernacle, is meant the chaplet, a shrine of that false god. The same was also theסכות דנותthe tabernacle of Benoth, orVenus.” Hammond’s Annotations. [Williams on Pearson,p.55.]Robbers of temples.——Think of the miserable absurdity of the common English translation in this passage, (Actsxix.37,) where the originalἱεροσυλοιis expressed by “robbers ofchurches!” Now who ever thought of applying the English word “church,” to anything whatever but a “Christianassembly,” or “Christianplace of assembly?” Why then is this phrase put in the mouth of a heathen officer addressing a heathen assembly about persons charged with violating the sanctity ofheathenplaces of worship? Such a building as a church, (εκκλησια,ecclesia) devoted to the worship of the true God, was not known till more than a century after this time; and the Greek wordἱερον, (hieron,) which enters into the composition of the word in the sacred text, thus mistranslated, wasneverapplied to aChristianplace of worship.
♦“Ααχιων” replaced with “Αχαιων”
♦“Ααχιων” replaced with “Αχαιων”
♦“Ααχιων” replaced with “Αχαιων”
“The wordsΓαλλίωνος δε ἀνθυπατεύοντοςought to be rendered, with Heumann, Walch, Antiquities, Corinth,p.35., and Reichard, (as indeed is required by the context,) ‘when Gallio had been made Proconsul,’ or ‘on Gallio’s entering on the Proconsulship.’ (Kuinoel.) In the same sense it was also taken by Beza and Piscator; and thisappears to be the true one. The Jews, it seems, waited for the arrival of a new Proconsul to make their request, as thinking that they should then be less likely to meet with a refusal.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.600.)
“‘Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogues.’ verse 17. In the8thverse we read that Crispus was the chief ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. And from this we may suppose that there were more than one synagogue in that city, or that there might be more than one ruler in the same synagogue; or that Crispus, after his conversion to Christianity, might have been succeeded by Sosthenes; but then we are at a loss to know who the people are that thus beat and misused him; the Greek printed copies tell us that they were the Gentiles; and those that read the text imagine, that when they perceived the neglect and disregard wherewith the proconsul received the Jews, they, to insult them more, fell upon the ruler of their synagogue, whether out of hatred to them, or friendship toSt.Paul, it makes no matter. But others think, that Sosthenes, however head of the synagogue, was nevertheless the friend ofSt.Paul, and that the other Jews, seeing themselves slighted by Gallio, might vent their malice upon him; for they suppose that this was the same Sosthenes, whose nameSt.Paul, in the beginning of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, written about three years after this time, joins with his own. This opinion, however, was not universally received, since, in the time of Eusebius, it was thought the Sosthenes mentioned in the epistle was one of the seventy disciples, and, consequently, could not be the chief of the synagogue at Corinth, twenty years after the death of Jesus Christ.” (Beausobre’s Annotations. Calmet’s Commentary and Dictionary.)
“‘xviii.17.ἐπιλαβόμενοι δὲ πάντες οἱ ἝλληνεςThere is here some variation of reading, and no little question raised as to the true one; which consequently leaves the interpretation unsettled. Two ancientMSS.and versions omitοἱ Ἕλληνες, and others readοἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. As to the latter reading, it cannot be tolerated; for why shouldthe Jewshave beaten him? Neither is it likely that they would have taken such a liberty before so solemn a tribunal. The wordsοἱ Ἕλληνεςare thought by many critics, as Grotius, Mill, Pierce, Bengel, and Kuinoel, to be derived from the margin, like the last. Now those wereGentiles(say they) who beat Sosthenes; and hence some one wroteοἱ Ἕλληνες. As to the reason for the beating, it was to make the Jews go away the faster; and to this they were actuated partly by their hatred towards the Jews, and partly by a desire to please the Procurator.’ But this appears to be pressing too much on the wordἀπήλασεν, which has by no means any such meaning. Besides, it is strange that the wordsἝλληνεςshould have crept into nearly all theMSS; even into so manyearlyones. And, supposingἝλληνεςto be removed, what sense is to be given toπαντες? None (I think) satisfactory, or agreeable to the style of the New Testament. It must therefore be retained: and then the sense ofπάντεςwill be as follows: ‘all the Greeks, both Gentiles and Christians:’ which is so evident, that I am surprised the commentators should not have seen it. Some explain it of the Gentiles, and others of the Gentile Christians.Bothindeed had reason to take umbrage at the intolerance and bitter animosity of the Jews. It is not likely that any should have joined in the beating, merely to please the Proconsul, who was not a man to be gratified by such a procedure. So that the gnomes brought forward by Grotius on the baseassentatioof courtiers, are not here applicable.
“Byἔτυπτονis merely to be understoodbeating, orthumping him with their fists, as he passed along. Anythingmorethan that, we cannot suppose they would have ventured upon, or the Proconsul have tolerated.”
“Byτούτων, (verse 17,) we may, I think, understand both the accusation brought forward, and the cuffs which followed; to neither of which the Proconsul paid much attention; and this from disgust at the litigious conduct of the Jews; as also from the custom, mentioned by Pricaeus, of the Roman governors, to pass by any conduct which did not directly tend to degrade the dignity of the Roman name, or weaken its influence, in order that the yoke might be as easy as possible to the provincials.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.pp.603–605.)
CORINTH——CENCHREA.Romansxvi.1. Actsxviii.18.
CORINTH——CENCHREA.Romansxvi.1. Actsxviii.18.
CORINTH——CENCHREA.Romansxvi.1. Actsxviii.18.
His character having been thus vindicated, and his safety thus assured him by the supreme civil authority, Paul resided for a long time in Corinth, steadily pursuing his apostolic work, without any direct hindrance or molestation from the Jews. Thereis no reason to suppose that he confined all his labor entirely to the city; on the contrary, it is quite certain, that the numerous smaller gospel fields throughout the adjacent country, must have attracted his attention, and it appears, from the commencement of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that many throughout all Achaia had received the gospel, and had been numbered among the saints. Corinth, however, remained the great center of his operations in Greece, and from this place he soon after directed another epistle to one of his apostolic charges in Macedonia,——the church of Thessalonica. Since his former epistle had been received by them, there had arisen a new occasion for his anxious attention to their spiritual condition, and in his second letter he alludes distinctly to the fact that there had been misrepresentations of his opinion, and seems to imply that a letter had been forged in his name, and presented to them, as containing a new and more complete account of the exact time of the expected coming of Christ, to which he had only vaguely alluded in the first. In the second chapter of his second epistle, he renews his warning against these delusions about the coming of Christ, alluding to the fact, that they had been deceived and disturbed by misstatements on this subject, and had been led into error, both by those who pretended to beinspired, and by those who attempted to show byprediction, that the coming of Christ was at hand, and also bythe forged epistlepretending to contain Paul’s own more decisive opinions on the subject. He exhorts them to “let no man deceive them by any of these means.” He warns them moreover, against any that exalt themselves against the doctrines which he had taught them, and denounces all false and presumptuous teachers in very bitter terms. After various warnings against these and all disorderly persons among them, he refers to his own behavior while with them, as an example for them to follow, and reminds them how blamelessly and honestly he behaved himself. He did not presume on his apostolic office, to be an idler, or to eat any man’s bread for naught, but steadily worked with his own hands, lest he should be chargeable to any one of them; and this he did, not because his apostolic office did not empower him to live without manual labor, and to depend on those to whom he preached for his means of subsistence, but because he wished to make himself, and his fellow-laborers, Silas and Timothy, examples for their behavior after he was gone. Yet it seemed that, notwithstanding the pains he had taken to inculcatean honest and industrious course, several persons among them had assumed the office of teaching and reproving, and had considered themselves thereby excused from doing anything for their own support. In the conclusion, he refers them distinctly to his own signature and salutation, which authenticate every epistle which he writes, and without which, no letter was to be esteemed genuine. This he specifies, no doubt, for the sake of putting them on their guard against the repetition of any such deception as had been lately practised on them in his name.HIS VOYAGE BACK TO THE EAST.Soon after Paul had written his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he left Corinth, in the spring of A. D. 56, as it is commonly calculated, and after bidding the brethren farewell, journeyed back to Asia, from whose shores he had now been absent not less than three years. On his return journey, he was accompanied by his two acquaintances and fellow-laborers, Aquilas and Priscilla, who were now his most intimate friends, and henceforth were always esteemed among the important aids of the apostolic enterprise. Journeying eastward across the isthmus, they came to Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, and at the head of the great Saronic gulf, about seven miles from the city itself. At this place Paul discharged himself of the obligation of a vow, which he had made some time before, in conformity with a common Jewish custom of thus giving force to their own sense of gratitude for the accomplishment of any desired object. He had vowed to let his hair grow until some unknown end was attained, and now, having seen the prayers which sanctioned that vow granted, he cut off his hair in token of the joyful completion of the enterprise on which he had thus solemnly and formally invoked the blessing of heaven. The actual purpose of this vow is not recorded,——but when the occasion on which he thus exonerated himself is considered, it seems most reasonable to suppose that now, embarking from the shores of Europe, after he had there passed so many years of very peculiar labor and trials, he was thus celebrating the prosperous and happy achievment of his first great western mission, and that this vow had been made for his safe return, when he first sailed from the eastern coast of the Aegean, at Alexandria Troas.He sailed from Cenchreae to Ephesus, a great city of Ionic Asia, which had never been the scene of his apostolic labors, though he had traversed much of the country around it; for itwill be remembered, that on his last journey through Asia Minor, when he had passed over Galatia and Phrygia, he was about to enter Asia Proper, but was hindered by a special impulse of the Spirit, which sent him in a different direction. But having thus achieved his great western enterprise, there was now no longer any more important commission to prevent him from gratifying his eyes with a sight of this very interesting region, and making here an experimental effort to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel through the numerous, wealthy, refined and populous cities of this, the most flourishing and civilized country in the world. He did not intend, however, to make anything more than a mere call at Ephesus; for the great object of his voyage from Europe was to return to Jerusalem and Syria, and give to his brethren, a full statement of all the interesting particulars of his long and remarkable mission in Macedonia and Greece. But he took occasion to vary this eastern route, so as to effect as much good as possible by the way; and therefore embarked first for Ephesus, where he landed with Aquilas and Priscilla, whom he left there, while he continued on his journey, southeastwards. He stopped with them however, a few days, with a view to open this new field of labor with them; and going into the synagogue, discoursed with the Jews. He was so well received by his hearers, that he was earnestly besought to prolong his stay among them; but he excused himself for his refusal of their kind invitation, by stating the great object which he had in view in leaving Europe at that particular time:——“I must by all means keep this coming feast at Jerusalem; but I will return to you,——God willing.” And bidding them farewell, he sailed away from Ephesus to Caesarea, on the coast of Palestine, where he landed. Thence he went up to Jerusalem, to salute the church. In this part of the history of Paul, Luke seems to be exceedingly brief; perhaps because he was not then with him, and had never received from him any account of this journey. There is therefore no way of ascertaining what was the particular motive or design of this visit. It would appear, however, from the very hurried manner in which the visit was noticed, that it was exceedingly brief, and his departure thence may, as Calvin conjectures, have been hastened by the circumstance, that possibly the business on which he went thither did not succeed according to his wishes. At any rate, there seems to have been something very mysterious about the whole matter, else there would not have been this very studied concealment ofthe motives and details of a journey, which he announced to the brethren of the church at Ephesus, asabsolutely necessaryfor him to perform. This also may have been concealed for the same reason, which has been conjectured to have caused the visit to be so short, as would seem from the manner in which it is noticed. From Jerusalem he went down to Antioch, by what route is not specified,——but probably by way of Caesarea and the sea.
His character having been thus vindicated, and his safety thus assured him by the supreme civil authority, Paul resided for a long time in Corinth, steadily pursuing his apostolic work, without any direct hindrance or molestation from the Jews. Thereis no reason to suppose that he confined all his labor entirely to the city; on the contrary, it is quite certain, that the numerous smaller gospel fields throughout the adjacent country, must have attracted his attention, and it appears, from the commencement of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that many throughout all Achaia had received the gospel, and had been numbered among the saints. Corinth, however, remained the great center of his operations in Greece, and from this place he soon after directed another epistle to one of his apostolic charges in Macedonia,——the church of Thessalonica. Since his former epistle had been received by them, there had arisen a new occasion for his anxious attention to their spiritual condition, and in his second letter he alludes distinctly to the fact that there had been misrepresentations of his opinion, and seems to imply that a letter had been forged in his name, and presented to them, as containing a new and more complete account of the exact time of the expected coming of Christ, to which he had only vaguely alluded in the first. In the second chapter of his second epistle, he renews his warning against these delusions about the coming of Christ, alluding to the fact, that they had been deceived and disturbed by misstatements on this subject, and had been led into error, both by those who pretended to beinspired, and by those who attempted to show byprediction, that the coming of Christ was at hand, and also bythe forged epistlepretending to contain Paul’s own more decisive opinions on the subject. He exhorts them to “let no man deceive them by any of these means.” He warns them moreover, against any that exalt themselves against the doctrines which he had taught them, and denounces all false and presumptuous teachers in very bitter terms. After various warnings against these and all disorderly persons among them, he refers to his own behavior while with them, as an example for them to follow, and reminds them how blamelessly and honestly he behaved himself. He did not presume on his apostolic office, to be an idler, or to eat any man’s bread for naught, but steadily worked with his own hands, lest he should be chargeable to any one of them; and this he did, not because his apostolic office did not empower him to live without manual labor, and to depend on those to whom he preached for his means of subsistence, but because he wished to make himself, and his fellow-laborers, Silas and Timothy, examples for their behavior after he was gone. Yet it seemed that, notwithstanding the pains he had taken to inculcatean honest and industrious course, several persons among them had assumed the office of teaching and reproving, and had considered themselves thereby excused from doing anything for their own support. In the conclusion, he refers them distinctly to his own signature and salutation, which authenticate every epistle which he writes, and without which, no letter was to be esteemed genuine. This he specifies, no doubt, for the sake of putting them on their guard against the repetition of any such deception as had been lately practised on them in his name.
HIS VOYAGE BACK TO THE EAST.
Soon after Paul had written his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he left Corinth, in the spring of A. D. 56, as it is commonly calculated, and after bidding the brethren farewell, journeyed back to Asia, from whose shores he had now been absent not less than three years. On his return journey, he was accompanied by his two acquaintances and fellow-laborers, Aquilas and Priscilla, who were now his most intimate friends, and henceforth were always esteemed among the important aids of the apostolic enterprise. Journeying eastward across the isthmus, they came to Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, and at the head of the great Saronic gulf, about seven miles from the city itself. At this place Paul discharged himself of the obligation of a vow, which he had made some time before, in conformity with a common Jewish custom of thus giving force to their own sense of gratitude for the accomplishment of any desired object. He had vowed to let his hair grow until some unknown end was attained, and now, having seen the prayers which sanctioned that vow granted, he cut off his hair in token of the joyful completion of the enterprise on which he had thus solemnly and formally invoked the blessing of heaven. The actual purpose of this vow is not recorded,——but when the occasion on which he thus exonerated himself is considered, it seems most reasonable to suppose that now, embarking from the shores of Europe, after he had there passed so many years of very peculiar labor and trials, he was thus celebrating the prosperous and happy achievment of his first great western mission, and that this vow had been made for his safe return, when he first sailed from the eastern coast of the Aegean, at Alexandria Troas.
He sailed from Cenchreae to Ephesus, a great city of Ionic Asia, which had never been the scene of his apostolic labors, though he had traversed much of the country around it; for itwill be remembered, that on his last journey through Asia Minor, when he had passed over Galatia and Phrygia, he was about to enter Asia Proper, but was hindered by a special impulse of the Spirit, which sent him in a different direction. But having thus achieved his great western enterprise, there was now no longer any more important commission to prevent him from gratifying his eyes with a sight of this very interesting region, and making here an experimental effort to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel through the numerous, wealthy, refined and populous cities of this, the most flourishing and civilized country in the world. He did not intend, however, to make anything more than a mere call at Ephesus; for the great object of his voyage from Europe was to return to Jerusalem and Syria, and give to his brethren, a full statement of all the interesting particulars of his long and remarkable mission in Macedonia and Greece. But he took occasion to vary this eastern route, so as to effect as much good as possible by the way; and therefore embarked first for Ephesus, where he landed with Aquilas and Priscilla, whom he left there, while he continued on his journey, southeastwards. He stopped with them however, a few days, with a view to open this new field of labor with them; and going into the synagogue, discoursed with the Jews. He was so well received by his hearers, that he was earnestly besought to prolong his stay among them; but he excused himself for his refusal of their kind invitation, by stating the great object which he had in view in leaving Europe at that particular time:——“I must by all means keep this coming feast at Jerusalem; but I will return to you,——God willing.” And bidding them farewell, he sailed away from Ephesus to Caesarea, on the coast of Palestine, where he landed. Thence he went up to Jerusalem, to salute the church. In this part of the history of Paul, Luke seems to be exceedingly brief; perhaps because he was not then with him, and had never received from him any account of this journey. There is therefore no way of ascertaining what was the particular motive or design of this visit. It would appear, however, from the very hurried manner in which the visit was noticed, that it was exceedingly brief, and his departure thence may, as Calvin conjectures, have been hastened by the circumstance, that possibly the business on which he went thither did not succeed according to his wishes. At any rate, there seems to have been something very mysterious about the whole matter, else there would not have been this very studied concealment ofthe motives and details of a journey, which he announced to the brethren of the church at Ephesus, asabsolutely necessaryfor him to perform. This also may have been concealed for the same reason, which has been conjectured to have caused the visit to be so short, as would seem from the manner in which it is noticed. From Jerusalem he went down to Antioch, by what route is not specified,——but probably by way of Caesarea and the sea.
“xviii.22.Caesarea.A town on the sea-coast. [See the note onp.173.]Ἀναβὰς, ‘and having gone up.’ Whither? Some commentators, as Camerarius, De Dieu, Wolf, Calov., Heumann, Doddridge, Thaleman, Beck, and Kuinoel, refer it toCaesarea. But this requires the confirmation of examples. And we musttake for grantedthat the city was built high above the port, (which is not likely,) or that thechurchwas so situated; which would be extremely frigid. Neither is it certain that therewasa church. Besides, how can the expressionκαταβαίνωbe proper, as used of traveling from a seaport-town, like Caesarea, to Antioch? I therefore prefer the mode of interpretation adopted by some ancient and many modern commentators, as Beza, Grotius, Mor., Rosenmueller, Reichard, Schott, Heinrichs, and others, who supplyεἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα. This may indeed seem somewhat harsh; yet it must be remembered that not a few things are so in the New Testament; andἀναβαίνωis there often used absolutely of going up to Jerusalem, andκαταβαίνωof going from thence. Nor is this unexampled in the classical writers. Xenophon uses the word in the very same sense, of those going from Greece to the capital of Persia. See Anabasis 1, 1, 2. Hist. 2, 1. 9, 10. Anabasis 1, 4, 12. Hist. 4, 1, 2. 1, 5, 1. 1, 4, 2. and many other passages referred to by Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophon in voce. Besides, as the wordsεἰς Ἱεροσόλυμαhave just preceded, it is not very harsh to repeat them. Kuinoel, indeed, and some others, treat those words as not genuine; but their opinion rests on mere suspicion, unsupported by any proof.” (Bloomfield Annotations.Vol. IV.p.607.)
From the very brief and general manner in which the incidents of this visit of Paul to the eastern continent are commemorated, the apostolic historian is left to gather nothing but the most naked circumstances, of the route pursued, and from the results, it is but fair to conclude that nothing of consequence happened to the apostle, as his duties consisted merely in a review and completion of the work he had gone over before. Luke evidently did not accompany Paul in this Asian journey, and he therefore only states the general direction of the apostle’s course, without a single particular. He says that Paul, after making♦some stay in Antioch,——where, no doubt he greatly comforted the hearts of the brethren, by the glad tidings of the triumphs of Christ in Europe,——went in regular order over the regions of Galatia, and Phrygia, everywhere confirming the disciples. Beyond this, no incident whatever is preserved; yet here great amplification of the sacred record might be made, from the amusing narrative of that venerable monkish story-teller, who assumes the name of Abdias Babylonius. But from the specimens of his narrative already given, in the lives of Andrew andJohn, the reader will easily apprehend that they contain nothing which deserves to be intruded into the midst of the honest, authentic statements, of the original and genuine apostolic history; and all these with many other similar inventions are wholly dismissed from the life of Paul, of whose actions such ample records have been left in the writings of himself and his companions, that it is altogether more necessary for the biographer to condense into a modernized form, with proper illustrations, the materials presented on the authority of inspiration, than to prolong the narrative with tedious inventions. In this part of the apostolic history, all that Luke records is, that Paul, after the before-mentioned survey of the inland countries of Asia Minor, came down to the western shore, and visited Ephesus, according to the promise which♠he had made them at his farewell, a few months before. Since that hasty visit made in passing, some events important to the gospel cause had happened among them. An Alexandrine Jew named Apollos, a man of great Biblical learning, (as many of the Jews of his native city were,) and indued also with eloquence,——came to Ephesus, and there soon distinguished himself as a religious teacher. Of the doctrines of Jesus Christ and his apostles, indeed, he had never heard; but he had somewhere been made acquainted with the peculiar reforming principles of his great forerunner, John the Baptist, and had been baptized, probably by some one of his disciples. With great fervor and power, he discoursed learnedly of the things of the Lord, in the synagogue at Ephesus, and of course, was brought under the notice of Aquilas and Priscilla, whom Paul had left to occupy that important field, while he was making his southeastern tour. They took pains to draw Apollos into their acquaintance, and found him, like every truly learned man, very ready to learn, even from those who were his inferiors in most departments of sacred knowledge. From them he heard with great interest and satisfaction, the peculiar and striking truths revealed in Jesus, and at once professing his faith in this new revelation, went forth again among the Jews, replenished with a higher learning and a diviner spirit. After teaching for some time in Ephesus, he was disposed to try his new powers in some other field; and proposing to journey into Achaia, his two Christian friends gave him letters of introduction and recommendation to the brethren of the church in Corinth. While he was there laboring with great efficiency in the gospel cause, Paul returning from his great apostolic survey of the inland and upperregions of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus. Entering on this work of perfecting and uniting the results of the various irregular efforts made by the different persons, who had before labored there, he found, among those who professed to hold the doctrines of a new revelation, about a dozen men, who knew very little of the great doctrines which Paul had been in the habit of preaching. One of his first questions to them, of course, was whether they had yet received that usual convincing sign of the Christian faith,——the Holy Spirit. To which they answered in some surprise, that they had not yet heard that there was any Holy Spirit;——thus evidently showing that they knew nothing about any such sign or its effects. Paul, in his turn considerably surprised, at this remarkable ignorance of a matter of such high importance, was naturally led to ask what kind of initiation they had received into the new dispensation; and learning from them, that they had only been baptized according to the baptism of John,——instantly assured them of the incompleteness of that revelation of the truth. “John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people that they must believe on him that should come after him,——that is on Christ Jesus.” Hearing this, they consented to receive from the apostle of Jesus, the renewal of the sign of faith, which they had formerly known as the token of that partial revelation made by John; and they were therefore baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,——a form of words which of course had never been pronounced over them before. Paul, then laying his hands on them, invoked the influence of the Holy Spirit, which was then immediately manifested, by the usual miraculous gifts which accompanied its effusion.
From the very brief and general manner in which the incidents of this visit of Paul to the eastern continent are commemorated, the apostolic historian is left to gather nothing but the most naked circumstances, of the route pursued, and from the results, it is but fair to conclude that nothing of consequence happened to the apostle, as his duties consisted merely in a review and completion of the work he had gone over before. Luke evidently did not accompany Paul in this Asian journey, and he therefore only states the general direction of the apostle’s course, without a single particular. He says that Paul, after making♦some stay in Antioch,——where, no doubt he greatly comforted the hearts of the brethren, by the glad tidings of the triumphs of Christ in Europe,——went in regular order over the regions of Galatia, and Phrygia, everywhere confirming the disciples. Beyond this, no incident whatever is preserved; yet here great amplification of the sacred record might be made, from the amusing narrative of that venerable monkish story-teller, who assumes the name of Abdias Babylonius. But from the specimens of his narrative already given, in the lives of Andrew andJohn, the reader will easily apprehend that they contain nothing which deserves to be intruded into the midst of the honest, authentic statements, of the original and genuine apostolic history; and all these with many other similar inventions are wholly dismissed from the life of Paul, of whose actions such ample records have been left in the writings of himself and his companions, that it is altogether more necessary for the biographer to condense into a modernized form, with proper illustrations, the materials presented on the authority of inspiration, than to prolong the narrative with tedious inventions. In this part of the apostolic history, all that Luke records is, that Paul, after the before-mentioned survey of the inland countries of Asia Minor, came down to the western shore, and visited Ephesus, according to the promise which♠he had made them at his farewell, a few months before. Since that hasty visit made in passing, some events important to the gospel cause had happened among them. An Alexandrine Jew named Apollos, a man of great Biblical learning, (as many of the Jews of his native city were,) and indued also with eloquence,——came to Ephesus, and there soon distinguished himself as a religious teacher. Of the doctrines of Jesus Christ and his apostles, indeed, he had never heard; but he had somewhere been made acquainted with the peculiar reforming principles of his great forerunner, John the Baptist, and had been baptized, probably by some one of his disciples. With great fervor and power, he discoursed learnedly of the things of the Lord, in the synagogue at Ephesus, and of course, was brought under the notice of Aquilas and Priscilla, whom Paul had left to occupy that important field, while he was making his southeastern tour. They took pains to draw Apollos into their acquaintance, and found him, like every truly learned man, very ready to learn, even from those who were his inferiors in most departments of sacred knowledge. From them he heard with great interest and satisfaction, the peculiar and striking truths revealed in Jesus, and at once professing his faith in this new revelation, went forth again among the Jews, replenished with a higher learning and a diviner spirit. After teaching for some time in Ephesus, he was disposed to try his new powers in some other field; and proposing to journey into Achaia, his two Christian friends gave him letters of introduction and recommendation to the brethren of the church in Corinth. While he was there laboring with great efficiency in the gospel cause, Paul returning from his great apostolic survey of the inland and upperregions of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus. Entering on this work of perfecting and uniting the results of the various irregular efforts made by the different persons, who had before labored there, he found, among those who professed to hold the doctrines of a new revelation, about a dozen men, who knew very little of the great doctrines which Paul had been in the habit of preaching. One of his first questions to them, of course, was whether they had yet received that usual convincing sign of the Christian faith,——the Holy Spirit. To which they answered in some surprise, that they had not yet heard that there was any Holy Spirit;——thus evidently showing that they knew nothing about any such sign or its effects. Paul, in his turn considerably surprised, at this remarkable ignorance of a matter of such high importance, was naturally led to ask what kind of initiation they had received into the new dispensation; and learning from them, that they had only been baptized according to the baptism of John,——instantly assured them of the incompleteness of that revelation of the truth. “John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people that they must believe on him that should come after him,——that is on Christ Jesus.” Hearing this, they consented to receive from the apostle of Jesus, the renewal of the sign of faith, which they had formerly known as the token of that partial revelation made by John; and they were therefore baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,——a form of words which of course had never been pronounced over them before. Paul, then laying his hands on them, invoked the influence of the Holy Spirit, which was then immediately manifested, by the usual miraculous gifts which accompanied its effusion.
♦removed duplicate word “some”♠removed duplicate word “he”
♦removed duplicate word “some”
♦removed duplicate word “some”
♠removed duplicate word “he”
♠removed duplicate word “he”
“xviii.24.Apollos.A name contracted fromApollonius, (which is read in the Cod. Cant.) as Epaphras from Epaphroditus, and Artemas from Artemonius. Of this Apollonius, mention is also made in 1 Corinthiansi.12.iii.5seq.where Paul speaks of the labor he underwent in the instruction of the Corinthians. (1 Corinthiansiv.6.xvi.12.)Γένει,by birth,i. e.country; as in 18, 2. The Jews of Alexandria were eminent for Biblical knowledge. That most celebrated city of Egypt abounded with men of learning, both Jews and Gentiles.” Kuinoel. (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.608.)
“TheBaptism of Johnis put, by synecdoche, for thewhole of John’s ordinances. See the note on Matthewxxi.25. (Kuinoel.) It is generally supposed that he had been baptized by John himself: but this must have been twenty years before; and it is not probable that during that time he should have acquired no knowledge of Christianity. It should rather seem that he had been baptized by one of John’s disciples; and perhaps not very long before the time here spoken of.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations,Vol. IV.p.610.)
“With respect to thelettershere mentioned, they were written for the purpose of encouraging Apollos, and recommending him to the brethren. This ancient ecclesiastical custom of writing letters of recommendation, (which seems to have originated in the necessary caution to be observed in times of persecution, and arose out of the interrupted and tardy intercourse which, owing to their great distance from eachother, subsisted between the Christians,) has been well illustrated by a tract of Ferrarius de Epistolis Ecclesiasticis, referred to by Wolf.” (Bloomfield.Vol. IV.p.611.)
“Ephesus was the metropolis of proconsular Asia. It was situated at the mouth of the river Cayster, on the shore of the Aegean sea, in that part anciently called Ionia, (but now Natolir,) and was particularly celebrated for the temple of Diana, which had been erected at the common expense of the inhabitants of Asia Proper, and was reputed one of the seven wonders of the world. In the time of Paul, this city abounded with orators and philosophers; and its inhabitants, in their gentile state, were celebrated for their idolatry and skill in magic, as well as for their luxury and lasciviousness. Ephesus is now under the dominion of the Turks, and is in a state of almost total ruin, being reduced to fifteen poor cottages, (not erected exactly on its original site,) and its once flourishing church is now diminished tothreeilliterate Greeks. (Revelationii.6.) In the time of the Romans, Ephesus was the metropolis of Asia. The temple of Diana is said to have been four hundred and twenty-five feet long, two hundred and twenty broad, and to have been supported by one hundred and twenty-seven pillars of marble, seventy feet high, whereof twenty-seven were most beautifully wrought, and all the rest polished. One Ctesiphon, a famous architect, planned it, and with so much art and curiosity, that it took two hundred years to finish it. It was set on fire seven times; once on the very same day that Socrates was poisoned, four hundred years before Christ.” (Horne’s Introduction. Whitby’s Table. Wells’s Geography. Williams on Pearson.)
After this successful effort to confirm and complete the conversions already effected, Paul went about his apostolic labors in the usual way,——going into the synagogue, and speaking boldly, disputing the antiquated sophistry of the Jews, and urging upon all, the doctrines of the new revelation. In this department of labor, he continued for the space of three months; but at the end of that time, he found that many obstacles were thrown in the way of the truth by the stubborn adherents of the established forms of old Judaism, who would not allow that the lowly Jesus was the Messiah for whom their nation had so long looked as the restorer of Israel. Leaving the hardened and obstinate Jews, he therefore, according to his old custom in such cases of the rejection of the gospel by them, withdrew from their society, and thenceforth went with those who had believed among the more candid Greeks, who, with a truly enlightened and philosophical spirit, held their minds open to the reception of new truths, even though they might not happen to accord with those which were sanctioned to them by the prejudices of education. After leaving the synagogue, his new place of preaching and religious instruction was the school of one Tyrannus,——doubtless one of those philosophical institutions with which every Grecian city abounded. This continued his field of exertion for two years, during which his fame became very widely established,——all the inhabitants of Ionic and Aeolic Asia, having heard of the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Among the causes and effects of this general notoriety, was the circumstance, that many miraculous cures were wrought by the hands of Paul; and many began even to attach a divineregard to his person;——handkerchiefs being brought to the sick from his body, which, on application to those afflicted, either with bodily or mental diseases, produced a perfect cure. This matter becoming generally known and talked of, throughout Ephesus, became the occasion of a ludicrous accident, which occurred to some persons who entertained the mistaken notion, that this faculty of curing diseases was transferable, and might be exercised by anybody that had enterprise enough to take the business in hand, and say over the form of words that seemed to be so efficacious in the mouth of Paul. A set of conjurers of Jewish origin, the seven sons of Sceva, who went about professedly following the trade of casting out devils, straightway caught up this new improvement on their old tricks, (for so they esteemed the divinely miraculous power of the apostle,) and soon found an opportunity to experiment with this, which they considered a valuable addition to their old stock of impositions. So, calling over the miserable possessed subject of their foolish experiment, they said——“We exorcise you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.” But the devil was not slow to perceive the difference between this second-hand, plagiaristic mode of operation, and the commanding tone of divine authority with which the demoniacal possessions were treated by the apostle of Jesus. He therefore quite turned their borrowed mummery into a jest, and cried out through the mouth of the possessed man,——“Jesus I know, and Paul I know:——but who are ye?” Under the impulse of the frolicsome, mischievous spirit, the man upon whom they were playing their conjuring tricks, jumped up at once, and fell upon these rash doctors with all his might, and with all the energy of a truly crazy demoniac, beat the whole seven, tore their clothes off from them, and threshed them to such effect, that they were glad to stop their mummery, and make off as fast as possible, but did not escape till they were naked and wounded. The affair of course, was soon very generally talked of, and the story made an impression, on the whole, decidedly favorable to the true source of that miraculous agency, which, when foolishly tampered with, had produced such appalling results. Many, among both Jews and Greeks, were thereby led to repentance and faith, and more particularly those who had been in the way of practising these arts of imposition. A very general alarm prevailed among all the conjurers, and many came and confessed the mean tricks by which they had hitherto maintained their reputation as controllers of the powers of the invisibleworld. Many who had also, at great expense of time and money, acquired the arts of imposition, brought the costly books in which were contained all the mysterious details of their magical mummery, and burned them publicly, without regard to their immense estimated pecuniary value, which was not less than nine thousand dollars. In short, the results of this apparently trifling occurrence, followed up by the zealous preaching of Paul, effected a vast amount of good, so that the word of God mightily grew and prevailed.
After this successful effort to confirm and complete the conversions already effected, Paul went about his apostolic labors in the usual way,——going into the synagogue, and speaking boldly, disputing the antiquated sophistry of the Jews, and urging upon all, the doctrines of the new revelation. In this department of labor, he continued for the space of three months; but at the end of that time, he found that many obstacles were thrown in the way of the truth by the stubborn adherents of the established forms of old Judaism, who would not allow that the lowly Jesus was the Messiah for whom their nation had so long looked as the restorer of Israel. Leaving the hardened and obstinate Jews, he therefore, according to his old custom in such cases of the rejection of the gospel by them, withdrew from their society, and thenceforth went with those who had believed among the more candid Greeks, who, with a truly enlightened and philosophical spirit, held their minds open to the reception of new truths, even though they might not happen to accord with those which were sanctioned to them by the prejudices of education. After leaving the synagogue, his new place of preaching and religious instruction was the school of one Tyrannus,——doubtless one of those philosophical institutions with which every Grecian city abounded. This continued his field of exertion for two years, during which his fame became very widely established,——all the inhabitants of Ionic and Aeolic Asia, having heard of the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Among the causes and effects of this general notoriety, was the circumstance, that many miraculous cures were wrought by the hands of Paul; and many began even to attach a divineregard to his person;——handkerchiefs being brought to the sick from his body, which, on application to those afflicted, either with bodily or mental diseases, produced a perfect cure. This matter becoming generally known and talked of, throughout Ephesus, became the occasion of a ludicrous accident, which occurred to some persons who entertained the mistaken notion, that this faculty of curing diseases was transferable, and might be exercised by anybody that had enterprise enough to take the business in hand, and say over the form of words that seemed to be so efficacious in the mouth of Paul. A set of conjurers of Jewish origin, the seven sons of Sceva, who went about professedly following the trade of casting out devils, straightway caught up this new improvement on their old tricks, (for so they esteemed the divinely miraculous power of the apostle,) and soon found an opportunity to experiment with this, which they considered a valuable addition to their old stock of impositions. So, calling over the miserable possessed subject of their foolish experiment, they said——“We exorcise you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.” But the devil was not slow to perceive the difference between this second-hand, plagiaristic mode of operation, and the commanding tone of divine authority with which the demoniacal possessions were treated by the apostle of Jesus. He therefore quite turned their borrowed mummery into a jest, and cried out through the mouth of the possessed man,——“Jesus I know, and Paul I know:——but who are ye?” Under the impulse of the frolicsome, mischievous spirit, the man upon whom they were playing their conjuring tricks, jumped up at once, and fell upon these rash doctors with all his might, and with all the energy of a truly crazy demoniac, beat the whole seven, tore their clothes off from them, and threshed them to such effect, that they were glad to stop their mummery, and make off as fast as possible, but did not escape till they were naked and wounded. The affair of course, was soon very generally talked of, and the story made an impression, on the whole, decidedly favorable to the true source of that miraculous agency, which, when foolishly tampered with, had produced such appalling results. Many, among both Jews and Greeks, were thereby led to repentance and faith, and more particularly those who had been in the way of practising these arts of imposition. A very general alarm prevailed among all the conjurers, and many came and confessed the mean tricks by which they had hitherto maintained their reputation as controllers of the powers of the invisibleworld. Many who had also, at great expense of time and money, acquired the arts of imposition, brought the costly books in which were contained all the mysterious details of their magical mummery, and burned them publicly, without regard to their immense estimated pecuniary value, which was not less than nine thousand dollars. In short, the results of this apparently trifling occurrence, followed up by the zealous preaching of Paul, effected a vast amount of good, so that the word of God mightily grew and prevailed.
EPHESUS.——Ruins of the Temple of Diana.Ephesiansi.1. Revelationii.1, 7.
EPHESUS.——Ruins of the Temple of Diana.Ephesiansi.1. Revelationii.1, 7.
EPHESUS.——Ruins of the Temple of Diana.Ephesiansi.1. Revelationii.1, 7.
“In Actsxx.31, the apostle says, that for the space of three years he preached at Ephesus. Grotius and Whitby hold that these three years are to be reckoned from his first coming to Ephesus,xviii.19; that he does not specify his being in any other city; and that when it is said here, ‘So that all Asia heard the word,’xix.40, it arose from the concourse that, on a religious account, continually assembled in that city. The Jews also, from different parts of Asia, were induced by commerce, or obliged by the courts of judicature, to frequent it. Other commentators contend that, as only two years, with three months in the synagogue, are here mentioned, the remaining three-quarters of a year were partly engaged in a progress through the neighboring provinces. (Elsley, from Lightfoot and Doddridge.)
“While he was at Ephesus, ‘God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons,’&c.&c.Acts♦xix.11, 12.Σιμικίνθιον,aprons, is slightly changed from the Latinsemicinctum, which workmen put before them when employed at their occupations, to keep their clothes from soiling. The difference which Theophylact and Oecumenius make between these andσουδάρια, is, that the latter are applied to the head, as a cap or veil, and the former to the hands as a handkerchief. ‘They carry them,’ says Oecumenius, ‘in their hands, to wipe off moisture from their face, as tears,’”&c.&c.(Calmet’s Commentary.)
♦removed spurious “v.”
♦removed spurious “v.”
♦removed spurious “v.”
“‘And they counted the price of them, [the books,] and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver,’ verse 19——αργυριονis used generally in the Old Testament,LXX.for the shekel, in value about 2s.6d., or the total 6250l.as Numbersvii.85. Deuteronomyxxii.19. 2 Kingsxv.20.Grotius.If it means the drachma, as more frequently used by the Greeks at 9d.each, the sum will be 1875l.” [$9000.] Doddridge. Elsley’s Annotations. (Williams on Pearson,pp.53–55.)
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.There is hardly one of the writings of Paul, about the date of which there has been so much discussion, or so many opinions as this; but the results of all the elaborate investigations and argumentations of the learned, still leave this interesting chronological point in such doubt, that this must be pronounced about the most uncertain in date, of all the Pauline epistles. It may however, without any inconsistency with the historical narrative of the Acts, or with any passages in the other epistles, be safely referred to the period of this residence in Ephesus, probably to the later part of it. The epistle itself contains no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to the place in which he was occupied at the time of writing, and only bare probabilities can therefore be stated on it,——nor can any decisive objection be made to any one of six opinions which have been strongly urged. Some pronounce itvery decidedly to have been the first of all the epistles written by Paul, and maintain that he wrote it soon after his first visit to them, at some time during the interval between Paul’s departure from Galatia, and his departure from Thessalonica. Others date it at the time of his imprisonment in Rome, according to the common subscription of the epistle. Against this last may, however, perhaps be urged his reproof to the Galatians, that they “wereso soonremoved from him that called them to the grace of Christ,”——an expression nevertheless, too vague to form any certain basis for a chronological conclusion. The great majority of critics refer it to the period of his stay in Ephesus,——a view which entirely accords with the idea, that it must have been written soon after Paul had preached to them; for on his last journey to Ephesus, he had passed through Galatia, as already narrated, confirming the churches. Some time had, no doubt, intervened since his preaching to them, sufficient at least to allow many heresies and difficulties to arise among them, and to pervert them from the purity of the truth, as taught to them by him. Certain false teachers had been among them since his departure, inculcating on all believers in Christ, the absolute necessity of a minute and rigid observance of Mosaic forms, for their salvation. They also directly attacked the apostolical character and authority of Paul,——declaring his opinion to be of no weight whatever, and to be opposed to that of the true original apostles of Jesus. These, Paul meets with great force in the very beginning of the epistle, entering at once into a particular account of the mode of his first entering the apostleship,——showing that it was not derived from the other apostles, but from the special commission of Christ himself, miraculously given. He also shows that he had, on this very question of Judaical rituals, conferred with the apostles at Jerusalem, and had received the sanction of their approbation in that course of open communion which he had before followed, on his own inspired authority, and had ever since maintained, in the face of what he deemed inconsistencies in the conduct of Peter. He then attacks the Galatians themselves, in very violent terms, for their perversion of that glorious freedom into which he had brought the Christian doctrine, and fills up the greater part of the epistle with reproofs of these errors.His argument against the doctrines of the servile Judaizers is made up in his favorite mode of demonstration, by simile and metaphor, representing the Christian system under the form ofthe offspring of Abraham, and afterwards images the freedom of the true believers in Jesus, in the exalted privilege of the descendants of Sara, while those enslaved to forms are presented as analogous in their condition to the children of Hagar. He earnestly exhorts them, therefore, to stand fast in the freedom to which Christ has exalted them, and most emphatically condemns all observance of circumcision. Thus pointing out to them, the purely spiritual nature of that covenant, of which they were now the favored subjects, he urges them to a truly spiritual course of life, bidding them aim at the attainment of a perfect moral character, and makes the conclusion of the epistle eminently practical in its direction. He speaks of this epistle as being a testimony of the very particular interest which he feels in their spiritual prosperity, because, (what appears contrary to his practice,) he has written it with his own hand. To the very last, he is very bitter against those who are aiming to bring them back to the observance of circumcision, and denounces those as actuated only by a base desire to avoid that persecution which they might expect from the Jews, if they should reject the Mosaic ritual. Referring to the cross of Christ as his only glory, he movingly alludes to the marks of his conformity to that standard, bearing as he does in his own body, the scars of the wounds received from the scourges of his Philippian persecutors. He closes without any mention of personal salutations, and throughout the whole makes none of those specifications of names, with which most of his other epistles abound. In the opening salutation, he merely includes with himself those “brethren that are with him,” which seems to imply that they knew who those brethren were, in some other way,——perhaps, because he had but lately been among them with those same persons as his assistants in the ministry.
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
There is hardly one of the writings of Paul, about the date of which there has been so much discussion, or so many opinions as this; but the results of all the elaborate investigations and argumentations of the learned, still leave this interesting chronological point in such doubt, that this must be pronounced about the most uncertain in date, of all the Pauline epistles. It may however, without any inconsistency with the historical narrative of the Acts, or with any passages in the other epistles, be safely referred to the period of this residence in Ephesus, probably to the later part of it. The epistle itself contains no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to the place in which he was occupied at the time of writing, and only bare probabilities can therefore be stated on it,——nor can any decisive objection be made to any one of six opinions which have been strongly urged. Some pronounce itvery decidedly to have been the first of all the epistles written by Paul, and maintain that he wrote it soon after his first visit to them, at some time during the interval between Paul’s departure from Galatia, and his departure from Thessalonica. Others date it at the time of his imprisonment in Rome, according to the common subscription of the epistle. Against this last may, however, perhaps be urged his reproof to the Galatians, that they “wereso soonremoved from him that called them to the grace of Christ,”——an expression nevertheless, too vague to form any certain basis for a chronological conclusion. The great majority of critics refer it to the period of his stay in Ephesus,——a view which entirely accords with the idea, that it must have been written soon after Paul had preached to them; for on his last journey to Ephesus, he had passed through Galatia, as already narrated, confirming the churches. Some time had, no doubt, intervened since his preaching to them, sufficient at least to allow many heresies and difficulties to arise among them, and to pervert them from the purity of the truth, as taught to them by him. Certain false teachers had been among them since his departure, inculcating on all believers in Christ, the absolute necessity of a minute and rigid observance of Mosaic forms, for their salvation. They also directly attacked the apostolical character and authority of Paul,——declaring his opinion to be of no weight whatever, and to be opposed to that of the true original apostles of Jesus. These, Paul meets with great force in the very beginning of the epistle, entering at once into a particular account of the mode of his first entering the apostleship,——showing that it was not derived from the other apostles, but from the special commission of Christ himself, miraculously given. He also shows that he had, on this very question of Judaical rituals, conferred with the apostles at Jerusalem, and had received the sanction of their approbation in that course of open communion which he had before followed, on his own inspired authority, and had ever since maintained, in the face of what he deemed inconsistencies in the conduct of Peter. He then attacks the Galatians themselves, in very violent terms, for their perversion of that glorious freedom into which he had brought the Christian doctrine, and fills up the greater part of the epistle with reproofs of these errors.
His argument against the doctrines of the servile Judaizers is made up in his favorite mode of demonstration, by simile and metaphor, representing the Christian system under the form ofthe offspring of Abraham, and afterwards images the freedom of the true believers in Jesus, in the exalted privilege of the descendants of Sara, while those enslaved to forms are presented as analogous in their condition to the children of Hagar. He earnestly exhorts them, therefore, to stand fast in the freedom to which Christ has exalted them, and most emphatically condemns all observance of circumcision. Thus pointing out to them, the purely spiritual nature of that covenant, of which they were now the favored subjects, he urges them to a truly spiritual course of life, bidding them aim at the attainment of a perfect moral character, and makes the conclusion of the epistle eminently practical in its direction. He speaks of this epistle as being a testimony of the very particular interest which he feels in their spiritual prosperity, because, (what appears contrary to his practice,) he has written it with his own hand. To the very last, he is very bitter against those who are aiming to bring them back to the observance of circumcision, and denounces those as actuated only by a base desire to avoid that persecution which they might expect from the Jews, if they should reject the Mosaic ritual. Referring to the cross of Christ as his only glory, he movingly alludes to the marks of his conformity to that standard, bearing as he does in his own body, the scars of the wounds received from the scourges of his Philippian persecutors. He closes without any mention of personal salutations, and throughout the whole makes none of those specifications of names, with which most of his other epistles abound. In the opening salutation, he merely includes with himself those “brethren that are with him,” which seems to imply that they knew who those brethren were, in some other way,——perhaps, because he had but lately been among them with those same persons as his assistants in the ministry.
On this very doubtful point, I have taken the views adopted by Witsius, Louis Cappel, Pearson, Wall, Hug and Hemsen. The notion that it was written at Rome is supported by Theodoret, Lightfoot, and Paley,——of course making it a late epistle. On the contrary, Michaelis makes it the earliest of all, and dates it in the year 49, at some place on Paul’s route from Troas to Thessalonica. Marcion and Tertullian also supposed it to be one of the earliest epistles. Benson thinks it was written during Paul’s first residence in Corinth. Lenfant and Beausobre, followed by Lardner, conjecture it to have been written either at Corinth or at Ephesus, during his first visit, either in A. D. 52, or 53. Fabricius and Mill date it A. D. 58, at some place on Paul’s route to Jerusalem. Chrysostom and Theophylact, date it before the epistle to the Romans. Grotius thinks it was written about the same time. From all which, the reader will see the justice of my conclusion, that nothing at all is known with any certainty about the matter.
THE EPHESIAN MOB.Paul having now been a resident in Ephesus for nearly threeyears, and having seen such glorious results of his labors, soon began to think of revisiting some of his former fields of missionary exertion, more especially those Grecian cities of Europe which had been such eventful scenes to him, but a few years previous. He designed to go over Macedonia and Achaia, and then to visit Jerusalem; and when communicating these plans to his friends at Ephesus, he remarked to them in conclusion——“And after that, I must also visit Rome.” He therefore sent before him into Macedonia, as the heralds of his approach, his former assistant, Timothy, and another helper not before mentioned, Erastus, who is afterwards mentioned as the treasurer of the city of Corinth. But Paul himself still waited in Asia for a short time, until some other preliminaries should be arranged for his removal. During this incidental delay arose the most terrible commotion that had ever yet been excited against him, and one which very nearly cost him his life.It should be noticed that the conversion of so large a number of the heathen, through the preaching of Paul, had struck directly at the foundation of a very thriving business carried on in Ephesus, and connected with the continued prevalence and general popularity of that idolatrous worship, for which the city was so famous. Ephesus, as is well known, was the chief seat of the peculiar worship of that great Asian deity, who is now known, throughout all the world, where the apostolic history is read, by the name of “Diana of the Ephesians.” It is perfectly certain, however, that this deity had no real connection, either in character or in name, with that Roman goddess of the chase and of chastity, to whom the name Diana properly belongs. The true classic goddess Diana was a virgin, according to common stories, considered as the sister of Apollo, and was worshiped as the beautiful and youthful goddess of the chase, and of that virgin purity of which she was supposed to be an instance, though some stories present an exception to this part of her character. Upon her head, in most representations of her, was pictured a crescent, which was commonly supposed to show, that she was also the goddess of the moon; but a far more sagacious and rational supposition refers the first origin of this sign to a deeper meaning. But when the mythologies of different nations began to be compared and united, she was identified with the goddess of the moon, and with that Asian goddess who bore among the Greeks the name ofArtemis, which is in fact the name given byLuke, as the title of the great goddess of the Ephesians. ThisArtemis, however, was a deity as diverse in form, character and attributes, from the classic Diana, as from any goddess in all the systems of ancient mythology; and they never need have been confounded, but for the perverse folly of those who were bent, in spite of all reason, to find in the divinities of the eastern polytheism, the perfect synonyms to the objects of western idolatry. The Asian and Ephesian goddess Artemis, had nothing whatever to do with hunting nor with chastity. She was not represented as young, nor beautiful, nor nimble, nor as the sister of Apollo, but as a vast gigantic monster, with a crown of towers, with lions crouching upon her shoulders, and a great array of pictured or sculptured eagles and tigers over her whole figure; and her figure was also strangely marked by a multitude of breasts in front. Under this monstrous figure, which evidently was no invention of the tasteful Greeks, but had originated in the debasing and grotesque idolatry of the orientals, Artemis of the Ephesians was worshiped as the goddess of the earth, of fertility, of cities, and as the universal principle of life and wealth. She was known among the Syrians by the name of Ashtaroth, and was among the early objects of Hebrew idolatry. When the Romans, in their all-absorbing tolerance of idolatry, began to introduce into Italy the worship of the eastern deities, this goddess was also added there, but not under the name of Diana. The classic scholar is familiar with the allusions to this deity, worshiped under the name of Cybele, Tellus and other such, and in all the later poets of Rome, she is a familiar object, as “the tower-crowned Cybele.” This was the goddess worshiped in many of the Grecian cities of Asia Minor, which, at their first colonization, had adopted this aboriginal goddess of those fertile regions, of whose fertility, civilization, agricultural and commercial wealth, she seemed the fit and appropriate personification. But in none of these Asian cities was she worshiped with such peculiar honors and glories as in Ephesus, the greatest city of Asia Minor. Here was worshiped a much cherished image of her, which was said to have fallen from heaven, called from that circumstance theDiopetos; which here was kept in that most splendid temple, which is even now proverbial as having been one of the wonders of the ancient world. Being thus the most famous seat of her worship, Ephesus also became the center of a great manufacture and trade in certain curious little images or shrines, representing this goddess, whichwere in great request, wherever her worship was regarded, being considered as the genuine and legitimate representatives, as well as representations of the Ephesian deity.This explanation will account for the circumstances related by Luke, as ensuing in Ephesus, on the success of Paul’s labors among the heathen, to whose conversion his exertions had been wholly devoted during the two last years of his stay in Ephesus. In converting the Ephesians from heathenism, he was guilty of no ordinary crime. He directly attacked a great source of profit to a large number of artizans in the city, who derived their whole support from the manufacture of those little objects of idolatry, which, of course, became of no value to those who believed Paul’s doctrine,——that “those were no gods which were made with hands.” This new doctrine therefore, attracted very invidious notice from those who thus found their dearest interests very immediately and unfortunately affected, by the progress made by its preacher in turning away the hearts of Ephesians from their ancient reverence for the shrines of Artemis; and they therefore listened with great readiness to Demetrius, one of their number, when he proposed to remedy the difficulty. He showed them in a very clear, though brief address, that “the craft was in danger,”——that warning cry which so often bestirs the bigoted in defence of the object of their regard; and after hearing his artful address, they all, full of wrath, with one accord raised a great outcry, in the usual form of commendation of the established idolatry of their city,——“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This noise being heard by others, and of course attracting attention, every one who distinguished the words, by a sort of patriotic impulse, was driven to join in the cry, and presently the whole city was in an uproar;——a most desirable condition of things, of course, for those who wished to derive advantage from a popular commotion. All bawling this senseless cry, with about as much idea of the occasion of the disturbance as could be expected from such a mob, the huddling multitudes learning the general fact, that the grand object of the tumult was to do some mischief to the Christians, and looking about for some proper person to be made the subject of public opinion, fell upon Gaius and Aristarchus of Macedonia, two traveling companions of Paul, who happened to be in the way, and dragged them to the theater, whither the whole mob rushed at once, as to a desirable scene for any act of confusion and folly which they might choose to commit. Paul, with a lion-like spirit,caring naught for the mob, proposed to go in and make a speech to them, but his friends, with far more prudence and cool sense than he,——knowing that an assembly of the people, roaring some popular outcry, is no more a subject of reason than so many raging wild beasts,——prevented him from going into the theater, where he would no doubt have been torn to pieces, before he could have opened his mouth. Some of the great magistrates of Asia, too, who were friendly to him, hearing of his rash intentions, sent to him a very urgent request, that he would not venture himself among the mob. Meanwhile the outcry continued,——the theater being crowded full,——and the whole city constantly pouring out to see what was the matter, and every soul joining in the religious and patriotic shout, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” And so they went on, every one, of course, according to the universal and everlasting practice on such occasions, making all the noise he could, but not one, except the rascally silversmiths, knowing what upon earth they were all bawling there for. Still this ignorance of the object of the assembly kept nobody still; but all, with undiminished fervor, kept plying their lungs to swell the general roar. As it is described in the very graphic and picturesque language of Luke,——“Some cried one thing, and some, another; for the whole assembly was confused;——and the more knew not wherefore they were come together,”——which last circumstance is a very common difficulty in such assemblies, in all ages. At last, searching for some other persons as proper subjects to exercise their religious zeal upon, they looked about upon the Jews, who were always a suspected class among the heathen, and seized one Alexander, who seems to have been one of the Christian converts, for the Jews thrust him forward as a kind of scapegoat for themselves. Alexander made the usual signs soliciting their attention to his words; but as soon as the people understood that he was a Jew, they all drowned his voice with the general cry, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and this they kept up steadily for two whole hours, as it were with one voice. Matters having come to this pass, the recorder of the city came forward, and having hushed the people,——who had some reverence for the lawful authorities, that fortunately were not responsible to them,——and made them a very sensible speech, reminding them that since no one doubted the reverence of the Ephesians for the goddess Artemis, and for theDiopetos, there surely was no occasion for all this disturbance to demonstrate a fact that every body knew.He told them that the men against whom they were raising this disturbance had neither robbed their temples nor blasphemed the goddess; so that if Demetrius and his fellow-craft had anything justly against these men, as having injured their business, they had their proper remedy at law. He hinted to them also that they were all liable to be called to account for this manifest breach of Roman law, and this defiance of the majesty of the Roman government;——a hint which brought most of them to their senses; for all who had anything to lose, dreaded the thought of giving occasion to the awfully remorseless government of the province, to fine them, as they certainly would be glad to do on any valid excuse. They all dispersed, therefore, with no more words.
THE EPHESIAN MOB.
Paul having now been a resident in Ephesus for nearly threeyears, and having seen such glorious results of his labors, soon began to think of revisiting some of his former fields of missionary exertion, more especially those Grecian cities of Europe which had been such eventful scenes to him, but a few years previous. He designed to go over Macedonia and Achaia, and then to visit Jerusalem; and when communicating these plans to his friends at Ephesus, he remarked to them in conclusion——“And after that, I must also visit Rome.” He therefore sent before him into Macedonia, as the heralds of his approach, his former assistant, Timothy, and another helper not before mentioned, Erastus, who is afterwards mentioned as the treasurer of the city of Corinth. But Paul himself still waited in Asia for a short time, until some other preliminaries should be arranged for his removal. During this incidental delay arose the most terrible commotion that had ever yet been excited against him, and one which very nearly cost him his life.
It should be noticed that the conversion of so large a number of the heathen, through the preaching of Paul, had struck directly at the foundation of a very thriving business carried on in Ephesus, and connected with the continued prevalence and general popularity of that idolatrous worship, for which the city was so famous. Ephesus, as is well known, was the chief seat of the peculiar worship of that great Asian deity, who is now known, throughout all the world, where the apostolic history is read, by the name of “Diana of the Ephesians.” It is perfectly certain, however, that this deity had no real connection, either in character or in name, with that Roman goddess of the chase and of chastity, to whom the name Diana properly belongs. The true classic goddess Diana was a virgin, according to common stories, considered as the sister of Apollo, and was worshiped as the beautiful and youthful goddess of the chase, and of that virgin purity of which she was supposed to be an instance, though some stories present an exception to this part of her character. Upon her head, in most representations of her, was pictured a crescent, which was commonly supposed to show, that she was also the goddess of the moon; but a far more sagacious and rational supposition refers the first origin of this sign to a deeper meaning. But when the mythologies of different nations began to be compared and united, she was identified with the goddess of the moon, and with that Asian goddess who bore among the Greeks the name ofArtemis, which is in fact the name given byLuke, as the title of the great goddess of the Ephesians. ThisArtemis, however, was a deity as diverse in form, character and attributes, from the classic Diana, as from any goddess in all the systems of ancient mythology; and they never need have been confounded, but for the perverse folly of those who were bent, in spite of all reason, to find in the divinities of the eastern polytheism, the perfect synonyms to the objects of western idolatry. The Asian and Ephesian goddess Artemis, had nothing whatever to do with hunting nor with chastity. She was not represented as young, nor beautiful, nor nimble, nor as the sister of Apollo, but as a vast gigantic monster, with a crown of towers, with lions crouching upon her shoulders, and a great array of pictured or sculptured eagles and tigers over her whole figure; and her figure was also strangely marked by a multitude of breasts in front. Under this monstrous figure, which evidently was no invention of the tasteful Greeks, but had originated in the debasing and grotesque idolatry of the orientals, Artemis of the Ephesians was worshiped as the goddess of the earth, of fertility, of cities, and as the universal principle of life and wealth. She was known among the Syrians by the name of Ashtaroth, and was among the early objects of Hebrew idolatry. When the Romans, in their all-absorbing tolerance of idolatry, began to introduce into Italy the worship of the eastern deities, this goddess was also added there, but not under the name of Diana. The classic scholar is familiar with the allusions to this deity, worshiped under the name of Cybele, Tellus and other such, and in all the later poets of Rome, she is a familiar object, as “the tower-crowned Cybele.” This was the goddess worshiped in many of the Grecian cities of Asia Minor, which, at their first colonization, had adopted this aboriginal goddess of those fertile regions, of whose fertility, civilization, agricultural and commercial wealth, she seemed the fit and appropriate personification. But in none of these Asian cities was she worshiped with such peculiar honors and glories as in Ephesus, the greatest city of Asia Minor. Here was worshiped a much cherished image of her, which was said to have fallen from heaven, called from that circumstance theDiopetos; which here was kept in that most splendid temple, which is even now proverbial as having been one of the wonders of the ancient world. Being thus the most famous seat of her worship, Ephesus also became the center of a great manufacture and trade in certain curious little images or shrines, representing this goddess, whichwere in great request, wherever her worship was regarded, being considered as the genuine and legitimate representatives, as well as representations of the Ephesian deity.
This explanation will account for the circumstances related by Luke, as ensuing in Ephesus, on the success of Paul’s labors among the heathen, to whose conversion his exertions had been wholly devoted during the two last years of his stay in Ephesus. In converting the Ephesians from heathenism, he was guilty of no ordinary crime. He directly attacked a great source of profit to a large number of artizans in the city, who derived their whole support from the manufacture of those little objects of idolatry, which, of course, became of no value to those who believed Paul’s doctrine,——that “those were no gods which were made with hands.” This new doctrine therefore, attracted very invidious notice from those who thus found their dearest interests very immediately and unfortunately affected, by the progress made by its preacher in turning away the hearts of Ephesians from their ancient reverence for the shrines of Artemis; and they therefore listened with great readiness to Demetrius, one of their number, when he proposed to remedy the difficulty. He showed them in a very clear, though brief address, that “the craft was in danger,”——that warning cry which so often bestirs the bigoted in defence of the object of their regard; and after hearing his artful address, they all, full of wrath, with one accord raised a great outcry, in the usual form of commendation of the established idolatry of their city,——“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This noise being heard by others, and of course attracting attention, every one who distinguished the words, by a sort of patriotic impulse, was driven to join in the cry, and presently the whole city was in an uproar;——a most desirable condition of things, of course, for those who wished to derive advantage from a popular commotion. All bawling this senseless cry, with about as much idea of the occasion of the disturbance as could be expected from such a mob, the huddling multitudes learning the general fact, that the grand object of the tumult was to do some mischief to the Christians, and looking about for some proper person to be made the subject of public opinion, fell upon Gaius and Aristarchus of Macedonia, two traveling companions of Paul, who happened to be in the way, and dragged them to the theater, whither the whole mob rushed at once, as to a desirable scene for any act of confusion and folly which they might choose to commit. Paul, with a lion-like spirit,caring naught for the mob, proposed to go in and make a speech to them, but his friends, with far more prudence and cool sense than he,——knowing that an assembly of the people, roaring some popular outcry, is no more a subject of reason than so many raging wild beasts,——prevented him from going into the theater, where he would no doubt have been torn to pieces, before he could have opened his mouth. Some of the great magistrates of Asia, too, who were friendly to him, hearing of his rash intentions, sent to him a very urgent request, that he would not venture himself among the mob. Meanwhile the outcry continued,——the theater being crowded full,——and the whole city constantly pouring out to see what was the matter, and every soul joining in the religious and patriotic shout, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” And so they went on, every one, of course, according to the universal and everlasting practice on such occasions, making all the noise he could, but not one, except the rascally silversmiths, knowing what upon earth they were all bawling there for. Still this ignorance of the object of the assembly kept nobody still; but all, with undiminished fervor, kept plying their lungs to swell the general roar. As it is described in the very graphic and picturesque language of Luke,——“Some cried one thing, and some, another; for the whole assembly was confused;——and the more knew not wherefore they were come together,”——which last circumstance is a very common difficulty in such assemblies, in all ages. At last, searching for some other persons as proper subjects to exercise their religious zeal upon, they looked about upon the Jews, who were always a suspected class among the heathen, and seized one Alexander, who seems to have been one of the Christian converts, for the Jews thrust him forward as a kind of scapegoat for themselves. Alexander made the usual signs soliciting their attention to his words; but as soon as the people understood that he was a Jew, they all drowned his voice with the general cry, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and this they kept up steadily for two whole hours, as it were with one voice. Matters having come to this pass, the recorder of the city came forward, and having hushed the people,——who had some reverence for the lawful authorities, that fortunately were not responsible to them,——and made them a very sensible speech, reminding them that since no one doubted the reverence of the Ephesians for the goddess Artemis, and for theDiopetos, there surely was no occasion for all this disturbance to demonstrate a fact that every body knew.He told them that the men against whom they were raising this disturbance had neither robbed their temples nor blasphemed the goddess; so that if Demetrius and his fellow-craft had anything justly against these men, as having injured their business, they had their proper remedy at law. He hinted to them also that they were all liable to be called to account for this manifest breach of Roman law, and this defiance of the majesty of the Roman government;——a hint which brought most of them to their senses; for all who had anything to lose, dreaded the thought of giving occasion to the awfully remorseless government of the province, to fine them, as they certainly would be glad to do on any valid excuse. They all dispersed, therefore, with no more words.
“‘Silver shrines,’ verse 24. The heathens used to carry the images of their gods in procession from one city to another. This was done in a chariot which was solemnly consecrated for that employment, and by the Romans styledThensa, that is,the chariot of their gods. But besides this, it was placed in a box or shrine, calledFerculum. Accordingly, when the Romans conferred divine honors on their great men, alive or dead, they had theCircen games, and in them theThensaandFerculum, thechariotand theshrine, bestowed on them; as it is related of Julius Caesar. This Ferculum among the Romans did not differ much from the GraecianΝαὸς,a little chapel, representing the form of a temple, with an image in it, which, being set upon an altar, or any other solemn place, having the doors opened, the image was seen by the spectators either in a standing or sitting posture. An old anonymous scholiast upon Aristotle’s Rhetoric,lib. i.c. 15, has these words:Ναοποιοὶ οἱ τοὺς ναοὺς ποιοῦσι, ἤτοι εἱκονοστάσια, τινα μικρὰ ξύλινα ἅ πωλοῦσι, observing theναοιhere to beεικονοστάσια,chaplets, with images in them, of wood, or metal, (as here ofsilver,) which they made and sold, as in verse 25, they are supposed to do. Athenaeus speaks of theκαδισκος, ‘which,’ says he ‘is a vessel wherein they place their images of Jupiter.’ The learned Casaubon states, that ‘these images were put in cases, which were made like chapels. (Deipnos.lib. ii.p.500.) SoSt.Chrysostom likens them to ‘little cases, or shrines.’ Dion says of the Roman ensign, that it was a little temple, and in it a golden eagle, (Ρωμαικ,lib. 40.) And in another place: ‘There was a little chapel of Juno, set upon a table.’Ρωμαικ,lib. 39.This is the meaning of the tabernacle of Moloch, Actsvii.43, where by theσκηνη,tabernacle, is meant the chaplet, a shrine of that false god. The same was also theסכות דנותthe tabernacle of Benoth, orVenus.” Hammond’s Annotations. [Williams on Pearson,p.55.]
Robbers of temples.——Think of the miserable absurdity of the common English translation in this passage, (Actsxix.37,) where the originalἱεροσυλοιis expressed by “robbers ofchurches!” Now who ever thought of applying the English word “church,” to anything whatever but a “Christianassembly,” or “Christianplace of assembly?” Why then is this phrase put in the mouth of a heathen officer addressing a heathen assembly about persons charged with violating the sanctity ofheathenplaces of worship? Such a building as a church, (εκκλησια,ecclesia) devoted to the worship of the true God, was not known till more than a century after this time; and the Greek wordἱερον, (hieron,) which enters into the composition of the word in the sacred text, thus mistranslated, wasneverapplied to aChristianplace of worship.