Chapter 18

[162]It is well, perhaps, to bear in mind the distances which separate the various stages of St. Paul's progress through Macedonia. Thessalonica was about a hundred miles from Philippi, Berœa fifty from Thessalonica, and the sea-coast of the Thermaic Gulf, or the Gulf of Salonica, as it is now called, some twenty miles from Berœa.[163]The best description which I know of this neighbourhood is that given by Mr. Tozer in hisHighlands of Turkey, vol. ii., p. 8. St. Paul embarked at the head of the long, narrow gulf, called anciently the Thermaic Gulf, leading up to the city of Thessalonica. The Apostle must have sailed in a mere fishing smack or good-sized boat, as the iron-bound western coast of this gulf is devoid of harbours sufficient for large ships. Mr. Tozer himself sailed from Thessalonica in such a vessel, seel.c., vol. ii., p. 4: "We chartered a vessel to convey us down the bay, a six-oared Smyrna caïque, quite elegant in her appointments as compared with the ordinary lumbering market boats and coasters of these seas, and a tight little craft withal, for though not more than six feet in width, and without a deck, she had made a voyage to the Crimea during the war." Cicero, even when going as proconsul into Asia travelled in the "undecked vessel of the Rhodians," of whose weakness and slowness he complains: see his letters to Atticus, v. 12 and 13.[164]This important work may be most easily consulted in Shilleto's translation, published in Bohn's Classical Library, Bell & Sons, London, 1886.[165]The Emperor Hadrian, for instance, adorned Athens with expensive buildings and libraries, and enriched it with endowments. See Duhr's work, p. 44, on theJourneys of the Emperor Hadrian, published in the Proceedings of the Archæological Society of Vienna; and cf. Pausanias, i. 18.[166]Any one wishing to consult the writings of this contemporary of St. Paul can find Philo's works translated into English in 4 vols. in Bohn's Library of Ecclesiastical Antiquity. A comparison of St. Paul's writings with those of Philo will show us the wondrous superiority of those of the Christian Apostle, owing to his inspiration by the Holy Ghost. St. Paul's writings are a perpetual feast of fat things nourishing the soul unto everlasting life. The writings of Philo are curious and interesting, but no one would dream of taking them as a spiritual guide of life.[167]The Athenians had for a long time previous to St. Paul's visit some commercial relations with the Jewish nation. Josephus,Antiqq., XIV. 8, tells us how they erected a brass statue of the high priest Hyrcanus, as an expression of their good will to the Jewish nation. This was a hundred years before St. Paul's visit. Bayet discovered early Jewish inscriptions among the Athenian cemeteries. See hisDe Titulis Atticæ Christianis, pp. 122-24, of which we treat in a noteinfra.[168]Pausanias, i. 15, gives a description of the Porch or Painted Chamber, the Stoa Pœcile, whence the Stoics derived their name, showing that it was close to the Agora, or market-place, where Paul disputed.[169]That period of retirement at Tarsus may have been utilised by St. Paul in studying classical literature and Greek philosophy by way of preparation for that life's work among the Gentiles, to which he was appointed at his conversion.[170]There are frequent notices of the altars to the unknown gods in ancient Greek writers: as in Pausanias,Description of Greece, vol. i., p. 2 (Shilleto's translation);Life of Apollonius, by Philostratus, vi., 3; Lucian'sPhilopatris, 29. See, however, for exhaustive discussions of this point, and the whole subject of the topography of ancient Athens, Lewin'sSt. Paul, vol. i., p. 242; Farrar'sSt. Paul, ch. xxvii., and Conybeare and Howson'sSt. Paul, vol. i., ch. x. Spon and Wheeler were travellers of the seventeenth century, whose works on this subject are important as showing Athens as it existed before modern changes. Some of the reports of travels in Greece, made by eminent scholars in the same century, and now very little known, may be found in the early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[171]St. Paul shows that he could sympathise with the true element in pantheistic stoicism by his famous words which have a certain pantheistic ring, but still a very different one from that of the Stoics: "In Him we live and move and have our being."[172]These words are directly and literally taken out of thePhænomenaof Aratus, a Greek poet of Cilicia and a fellow-countryman of the orator. He was absolutely correct, however, in saying "certain of your own poets," as the same sentiment is found in a hymn to Jupiter, composed by the Stoic philosopher and poet Cleanthes, a poem which will be found with a Latin version in Cudworth'sIntellectual System. Cleanthes was the immediate successor of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. His words therefore would have the more weight with his disciples three centuries later. He died, like a Stoic, of hunger, aged eighty, and a statue was erected to him by the Roman Senate in his native place Assos, a town of Æolis in Greece. See for more about Cleanthes and Aratus, Fabricius,Bibliotheca Græca, or Smith'sDict. Greek and Rom. Biog.[173]As it was with the ancient image worshippers, so is it with the modern. The excuses made for the pagans in ancient times are exactly the same as those made for the image worshippers of the eighth and later centuries: see the article on Iconoclasm in theDict. Christ. Biog.[174]Few biblical characters have been so surrounded with a haze of fable as Dionysius the Areopagite. All that we certainly know about him is from this passage in the Acts, and from two notices by Eusebius,H. E., iii. 4, and iv. 23. In theActa Sanctorumthe Bollandists bestow an immense quantity of space on Dionysius and the literature of the subject under the date Oct. 9th, in their Fourth Volume for October, pp. 696-987. The name of Dionysius became specially celebrated when about the year 500 it was attached to an impudent forgery called theHeavenly Hierarchy, from which has been largely derived the modern Roman doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and which has also exercised a great influence on the development of modern pantheism: see the article on Dionysius in vol. i. of Smith'sDict. Christ. Biog.Johannes Scotus Erigena, an Irish scholar of the ninth century, was the only man in France found capable of translating these Greek works when brought to Western Europe from the East: seeVett. Epistt. Hibernic. Sylloge, xxii., xxiii., xxiv., in Ussher's Works (Ed. Elrington), iv. 474-87. Dionysius is commemorated on Oct. 3rd in the ancient Latin Martyrologies, on Oct. 9th in the modern Roman Martyrology. The ancient Martyrologies—the ancient Roman, Ado's, Usaurd's—have a curious notice stating that Aristides the Athenian, in a work which he wrote about the Christian religion, described the martyrdom of Dionysius in the reign of Hadrian. There is no notice of this in theApologyof Aristides which has lately come to light. A curious story is told in one of his alleged letters, addressed to Polycarp. Apollophanes, a pagan sophist, was attacking Polycarp about Christianity. Dionysius tells Polycarp to remind his opponent of the miraculous darkness on the day of Crucifixion which Dionysius and Apollophanes had seen at Hierapolis, where they were then both students, when Dionysius said, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the world is in process of dissolution."[175]The visits of the Emperor Hadrian to Athens, and his delight in that city, have been confirmed by the latest antiquarian investigations in the region of coins and inscriptions. The student who wishes to make acquaintance with the evidence on this point, which has an important bearing upon the historic proof of our holy religion, should consult the learned treatise of Julius Dürr, styled,Die Reisen der Kaisers Hadrian, (Vienna, 1881). It minutely investigates the records of Hadrian's life, and shows us that Hadrian visited and lived at Athens inA.D.125. This work was published ten years before theApologyof the Athenian Christian Aristides was discovered, serving to illustrate its history from an independent point of view. I have endeavoured to set forth the bearing of this point at greater length than I can now bestow upon it in a series of papers on theApologyof Aristides in theSunday at Homefor 1891-2. Mrs. Rendal Harris, the wife of the discoverer of it, has published an interesting work on thisApology, to which I would refer the reader (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892). TheApologyitself was published in 1891, in the series calledCambridge Texts and Studies.[176]The testimony of Eusebius,H. E., iv. 5, is express on this point: "Down to the siege of the Jews under Hadrian there were fifteen bishops in the Church of Jerusalem, all of whom, as they say, were Hebrews from the first, and received the genuine knowledge of Christ, so that in the estimation of those able to judge they were counted worthy of the episcopal office."[177]The whole subject of the origin and history of the primitive Church of Athens has been minutely investigated by a modern French scholar, C. Bayet, a member of the French school of antiquaries at Athens. The title of his book, to which I have already referred, isDe Titulis Atticæ Christianis Antiquissimis Commentatio(Thorin: Paris, 1878). He gives a large number of primitive Christian and Jewish inscriptions found at Athens. The above quotation from Aristides will be found in Rendal Harris's edition, p. 48, in the CambridgeTexts and Studies.[178]This expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius, which in the providence of God brought Aquila and Priscilla into contact with St. Paul, is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius,Claudius, 25, in the following suggestive words: "He expelled the Jews who were continually creating tumults, Chestus impelling them." The tumults roused by the teaching of Christian doctrine, like those in the Thessalonian and Berœan synagogues, were evidently the origin of the edict. Aquila and Priscilla were constant travellers, and seem to have been influential Christians. We find them afterwards at Ephesus, where they tarried some time: see Acts xviii. 18, 19, 26; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; and subsequently 2 Tim. iv. 19. They also lived at Rome for a period between their two residences at Ephesus, as we learn from the fact that St. Paul sends a salutation to them in Romans xvi. 3, 4.[179]See 1 Cor. i. 14-17: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, save Crispus and Gaius; lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." I have often heard a very wrong conclusion drawn from this passage. People think that St. Paul was here casting a certain slight upon baptism as contrasted with preaching. His meaning, however, is evident to any one who will realise the circumstances. The Corinthians were breaking up into sects, calling themselves by the names of various Christian leaders. St. Paul thanks God that very few can call themselves by his name, as they had not even the poor excuse for doing so, which his officiating at their baptism might give. To him, in God's providence, had been assigned the rough, dangerous pioneer work of preaching to the adversaries, Jews and pagans, outside the Church; to others the work of introducing the converts made by him into the Mystical Body of Christ.[180]In vol. i., p. 270, I have pointed out that in Corinth the Christians probably adopted, not only the name, but the organisation of the synagogues.[181]Cicero, in his oration Pro Flacco, ch. xxviii., shows how troublesome and dangerous, even to the very highest persons, the Jews at Rome could be one hundred years earlier than Gallio's day.[182]Jeremy Taylor, in hisHoly Living, in his chapter on Prayer, has some wise remarks on vows. He includes them under the head of Prayer: "A vow to God is an act of prayer and a great degree and instance of opportunity, and an increase of duty by some new uncommanded instance, or some more eminent degree of duty or frequency of action, or earnestness of spirit in the same. And because it hath pleased God in all ages of the world to admit of intercourse with His servants in the matter of vows, it is not ill advice that we make vows to God in those cases in which we have great need or great danger." He then proceeds to lay down rules and cautions for making vows.[183]See Procter on the Common Prayer, p. 212; Canon Evan Daniel on the Prayer Book, pp. 87 and 300.[184]See on this subject of the confusion of Christianity with Judaism by the Romans, Wieseler'sDie Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, pp. 1-10.[185]Meyer, in his Commentary on ch. xix. 5, enunciates the following extraordinary theory about Apollos, which plainly shows that, valuable as may be his textual criticism, his conception of Christian doctrine and of Apostolic Church life is very defective: "We may not infer from this passage that the disciples of John, who passed over to Christianity, were uniformly re-baptized; for in the case of the apostles who passed over from John to Jesus this certainly did not take place; and even as regards Apollos the common opinion that he was baptized by Aquila is purely arbitrary, as in xviii. 26 his instruction in Christianity, and not his baptism, is narrated." Again: "Apollos could dispense with re-baptism, seeing that he, with his fervid spirit, following the references of John to Christ, and the instruction of his teachers, penetrated without any new baptismal consecration into the pneumatic elements of life." Meyer evidently fails to grasp what the sacrament of baptism was, as conceived by St. Paul, and uses the most dangerous line of argument, that from silence, concluding that, because there is no mention of the Christian baptism of Apollos, therefore such a baptism never took place. But this is not all. Meyer's theory cannot possibly explain why baptism was necessary for Cornelius, though he enjoyed the gift of the Holy Ghost, while it was not necessary for Apollos, "who penetrated without any new baptismal consecration into the pneumatic element of life." Meyer says, indeed, that in the whole New Testament there is no example except in xix. 1-5 of the re-baptism of a disciple of John. But then in the Acts and Epistles, where alone we read of the administration of Christian baptism, there are only two examples of the admission of John's disciples. In one case twelve such were admitted, and they were all baptized by Paul's own order. In the case of Apollos there is silence. Surely the sounder conclusion is that Christian baptism was administered there too, though nothing is said about it! As for the apostles not being baptized with Christian baptism, the explanation is not far to seek. Baptism is the reception of a disciple into covenant with Christ through the medium of water. In the case of the apostles this reception took place in person, and not through any medium. In the apostles' case, too, there is another consideration. Meyer's conclusion is simply onee silentioeven in their case. We know not, however, everything that Christ did as regards His apostles.[186]The movement instituted by St. John the Baptist was perpetuated into the second century, and in some measure developed into, or connected itself with, the sect subsequently called the Hemerobaptists. The history of this movement from apostolic days is elaborately traced by Bishop Lightfoot in his Essay on the Essenes, contained in hisColossians and Philemon; see especially pp. 400-407, to which we must refer the reader desirous of more information. The Hemerobaptists are mentioned in theClementine Recognitions, i. 54, theClementine Homilies, ii. 23, which date from about 200A.D., and in theApostolic Constitutions, vi. 6, which may be put down as a century later. This shows the continuity of the sect. There are still some fragments of it existing in Babylonia, under the name of Mandeans: see further the article "Sabians" in Smith'sDict. Christ. Biog., iv. 569-73.[187]See my remarks on this topic on pp. 141, 142 of my first volume on Acts.[188]See theDidache, orTeaching of the Twelve Apostles, concerning the methods used in preparation for baptism.[189]See pp. 32, 33 above for some remarks on this title, the Way, used in the Acts for the Gospel Dispensation or the Christian Church. Cf. also ch. ix. 2, xix. 23, xxii. 4, xxiv. 14, and the expression the Way of Life in theDidache.[190]Bishop Lightfoot,Colossians, Introd., p. 30, has some good remarks bearing on this topic: "How or when the conversion of the Colossians took place we have no direct information. Yet it can hardly be wrong to connect the event with St. Paul's long sojourn at Ephesus. Here he remained preaching for three whole years. It is possible, indeed, that during this period he paid short visits to other neighbouring cities of Asia; but if so, the notices in the Acts oblige us to suppose these interruptions to his residence in Ephesus to have been slight and infrequent. Yet, though the Apostle himself was stationary in the capital, the Apostolic influence and teaching spread far beyond the limits of the city and its immediate neighbourhood. It was hardly an exaggeration when Demetrius declared that 'almost throughout all Asia this Paul had persuaded and turned away much people.' The sacred historian himself uses equally strong language in describing the effects of the Apostle's preaching: 'All they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.' In accordance with these notices the Apostle himself, in an Epistle written during this sojourn, sends salutations to Corinth, not from the Church of Ephesus specially, as might have been anticipated, but from the 'Churches of Asia' generally (1 Cor. xvi. 19). St. Luke, it should be observed, ascribes this dissemination of the gospel not to journeys undertaken by the Apostle, but to his preaching at Ephesus itself. Thither, as to the metropolis of Western Asia, would flock crowds from all the towns and villages far and near. Thence they would carry away, each to his own neighbourhood, the spiritual treasure which they had so unexpectedly found."[191]I allude, of course, to the decree of Claudius against the Jews inA.D.52, to which Suetonius (Claudius, 25) and Dio Cassius, lx. 6, refer; cf. Tacitus,Annals, xii. 52, and Lewin'sFasti Sacri,A.D.52.[192]The story is an interesting one. It will be found in Stephens'Life of St. Chrysostom, p. 61. The Emperor Valens had discovered that some of his enemies had been endeavouring, through magical contrivances something like table-rapping, to spell out the name of his successor, and had succeeded so far that they had found out the first part of the name as Theod, but the oracle could tell nothing more. The jealous Emperor ordered every prominent man with the names Theodore or Theodosius to be slain, vainly thinking to kill his own successor. He also ordered every one found with magical books in their possession to be at once slain. Chrysostom and a friend were walking inA.D.374 on the banks of the Orontes when they saw a book floating down the stream. They stretched forth and rescued it, when, seeing that it was a magical book, they at once flung it back into the river, and not a moment too soon, as just then a police officer on detective duty appeared on the scene, from whom a moment earlier they could not have escaped. St. Chrysostom always regarded this as one of the great escapes of his life: see Art. "Chrysostom" inDict. Christ. Biog., vol. i., p. 520, and his own reference to the escape in his 38th Homily on the Acts, translated in the Oxford Library of the Fathers. Mr. Stephens,l.c., gives an account of the magical rites and their ceremonial, which was doubtless much the same inA.D.374 as inA.D.54, whence we take a brief extract: "The twenty-four letters of the alphabet were arranged at intervals round the rim of a kind of charger, which was placed on a tripod consecrated by magic songs and frequent ceremonies. The diviner, habited as a heathen priest, in linen robes, sandals, and with a fillet wreathed about his head, chanted a hymn to Apollo, the god of prophecy, while a ring in the centre of the charger was slipped rapidly round a slender thread. The letters in front of which the ring successively stopped indicated the character of the oracle."[193]The magical books thus consigned to the flames by the Christian believers who practised magic were filled with figures or characters technically called "Ephesian letters," Γράμματα Ἐφέσια. These were mystic characters and strange words which were engraven on the crown, zone, and feet of the goddess. Clement of Alexandria discusses their use, and says the Greeks were greatly addicted to them, in hisStromata, v. 8, as translated in Clement's works, vol. ii., p. 247, in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library. The same use of curious mystic words passed over to the Manichæans and other secret sects of mediæval times. See also Guhl'sEphesiaca, p. 94 (Berlin, 1843), where all the authorities on this curious subject are collected together. Conybeare and Howson, ch. xiv., give them from Guhl in a handy shape. Great quantities of these "Ephesian letters" have been found among the Fayûm Manuscripts discovered in Egypt, which almost universally make a large use of the name Iao or Jehovah, showing their contact with Judaism.[194]This subject properly belongs to commentators on 1 Corinthians. Paley, inHoræ Paulinæ, ch. iii., and Dr. Marcus Dods, in hisIntroduction to the New Testament, pp. 104, 105, set forth the evidence in a convenient shape. I may remark that here, as elsewhere, I adopt in the main Mr. Lewin's chronology, as contained in hisFasti Sacri. Without pledging myself to agree in all his details, his scheme forms a good working hypothesis, on which a writer can work when composing an expositor's commentary, not one for professed critics or profound scholars.[195]The student may consult on the identification of Artemis and the Oriental or Persian deity Anaïtis, theRevue Archéologiquefor 1885, vol. ii., pp. 105-115, and Derenbourg and Saglio'sDict. des Antiq., s.v. Diana.[196]This argument may be pressed further. The silence which we observe in much of second-century literature about the New Testament Canon and Episcopacy is of the same character. The best known and most notorious facts are those about which authors are most apt to be silent when writing for contemporaries, simply because every person acknowledges them and takes them for granted.[197]This is manifest at once if the reader will consult Mr. Wood'sEphesusor Guhl'sEphesiaca, a work which, though published (in 1843) before modern discoveries had taught all we now know, is a most elaborate account of ancient Ephesus gleaned out of ancient writers.[198]See on the exact time of the Macedonian and Ephesian month of Artemisius, Ussher's treatise on the Macedonian and Asiatic solar year, in the seventh volume of his works Ed. Elrington, p. 425, with which may be compared Bishop Lightfoot'sIgnatius, i. 660-700. Mr. Lewin, in hisFasti Sacri, p. 309, makes it the month of May. The Macedonian month Artemisius extended from March 25th to April 24th. This point is further discussed in Lewin'sSt. Paul, vol. i., p. 405. If St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians at or shortly before April 7th, the date of the Passover, the riot which hastened his departure must have happened within the succeeding fortnight. Bœckh, in the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions, No. 2954, inserts a long Greek inscription, found one hundred and seventy years ago at Ephesus, laying down the ceremonial to be observed in honour of the deity throughout the whole month, which Mr. Lewin translates, vol. i., p. 405. See, however, more upon this below.[199]The Persian language was still used in the worship of Diana at Hierocæsarea and Hypæpa, two well-known towns of the province of Asia in the second century of our era. See Pausanias, v. 27; cf. Tacitus,Annals, iii. 62, and Ramsay'sHist. Geog., p. 128.[200]Voluntary associations were formed all over Asia Minor to cultivate the worship of Artemis. Modern research, for instance, has found inscriptions raised by the Xenoi Tekmoreioi indicating their peculiar devotion to Diana and her worship. They specially flourished at a place called Saghir, near Antioch in Pisidia. It is a curious fact that the cult of the B.V.M. has been substituted for that of Artemis by the Greeks of the neighbourhood, and a feast in her honour is celebrated at the same time as the ancient feast. SeeRevue Archéologique, 1887, vol. i., p. 96; Ramsay, in hisGeography of Asia Minor, p. 409, and inJour. Hell. Studiesfor 1883.[201]The original sacred image, which was preserved inside a screen or curtain in the inmost temple, was a shapeless mass of wood something like the prehistoric blocks of wood or stone which were esteemed at Athens and elsewhere the most venerable images of their favourite deities: see Pausanias,Description of Greece, i. 26. The legend at Ephesus was just the same as at Athens and elsewhere, that these prehistoric images had fallen down from heaven. Some of them may have been aerolites.[202]The temple of Ephesus is depicted in Conybeare and Howson's and Lewin'sSt. Paul, as well as it could have been restored from a study of books. At the time of their publication neither Mr. Wood's discoveries had been made nor his work on Ephesus published. The plans and engravings in Mr. Wood's work of course supersede all others. The plans, etc., in the other works are sufficiently accurate to enable the reader to realise the language of the Acts.[203]The original of this decree will be found in Bœckh'sCorp. Inscriptt. Græc., No. 2954, and the translation in Lewin'sSt. Paul, 405.[204]There is a long account of Achilles Tatius in theBibliotheca Græcaof Fabricius. He was a pagan first, and then became a Christian. His age is uncertain, but he certainly seems to have lived when pagan feasts were still observed in their ancient splendour. The book in which he describes them is calledDe Amoribus Clitophontis et Leucippes, where in Book VI., ch. iii. there is an account of the drunkenness and idleness at the feast of Diana. The words of Achilles Tatius bring the scene vividly before us as St. Paul must have seen it: "It was the festival of Artemis, and every place was full of drunken men, and all the market-place was full of a multitude of men through the whole night." In Mason'sDiocletian Persecution, p. 361, there will be found an account of a festival celebrated in honour of Artemis in the same spring season at Ancyra in Galatia. This latter account is useful as giving us an authentic account of a Celtic festival of Diana about the year 306A.D.It would seem as if an annual public washing of the image of Diana constituted an important part of the ceremonial. Both at Ancyra as told in the Acts of St. Theodotus and at Ephesus the image of Diana was annually carried about in a waggon drawn by mules: see Guhl'sEphesiaca, p. 114. At Ancyra, during the Diocletian persecution, seven Christian virgins were dressed as priestesses of Diana and condemned to publicly wash the idol. Upon their refusal they were all drowned in the lake where the image was washed. The Seven Virgins of Ancyra are celebrated in the annals of Christian martyrdom for their heroic resistance on this occasion. See Mason,l.c., and theDict. Christ. Biog., s.v.Seven Virgins of Ancyra and Theodotus.[205]See vol. i., pp. 8, 9.[206]See the articles on Polycarp in theDict. Christ. Biog., iv. 426, and on Martyrs of Lyons, iii. 764. As regards Polycarp, see also Lightfoot'sIgnatius, vol. i., p. 436; and as regards the Martyrs of Lyons, see Rénan'sMarc-Aurèle, pp. 329, 331. It is interesting to notice, in the writings of St. Paulinus of Nola written about the year 400A.D., his complaints about the abuses, drunkenness and idleness, connected with the feasts and holy days observed in honour of his great patron and hero St. Felix the Martyr. A similar feeling of the moral dangers connected with religious holy days led to the abbreviation of the week's holiday following Easter and Whitsunday to Monday and Tuesday as at present.[207]The pagan temples were almost universally destroyed about the year 400. The edicts dealing with this matter and an ample commentary upon them will be found in the Theodosian Code, edited by that eminent scholar Godefroy.[208]An interesting confirmation of this fact came to light in modern times. In the year 1830 there was found in Southern France a piece of such Ephesian silver work wrought in honour of Artemis, and carried into Gaul by one of her worshippers. It is now deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and has been fully described in an interesting article in theJournal of Hellenic Studies, vol. iii., pp. 104-106, written by that eminent antiquary C. Waldstein.[209]See theRevue Archéologiquefor 1886, vol. ii., p. 257, about the worship of the Ephesian Artemis in Marseilles and Southern Gaul, and an article in theJournal of Hellenic Studiesfor 1889, vol. x., p. 216, by Professor Ramsay, on the vast extent of Artemis worship in Asia. In the same journal, for 1890, vol. xi., p. 235, we have an account of the discovery of one of the original seats of Artemis worship in Eastern Cilicia by Mr. J. T. Bent; while again, in vol. iv., p. 40-43, Ramsay gives us a subscription list raised in Pisidia for the purpose of building a temple of Artemis in a country district.[210]Aristarchus is described in the Martyrologies as the first bishop of Thessalonica, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Nero. He is commemorated on August 4th.[211]These local parliaments under the Roman Empire have been the subject of much modern investigation at the hands of French and German scholars. See for references to the authorities on the point an article which I wrote inMacmillan's Magazinefor 1882.[212]See the index to Lightfoot'sIgnatius and Polycarpfor extended references to the Asiarchate, and also Mommsen'sRoman Provinces(Dickson's translation), vol. i., pp. 345-7.[213]The Ephesian mob four hundred years later displayed at the third General Council held at Ephesus in 431 an extraordinary power of keeping up the same cry for hours. See the story of the Council as told by Hefele in the third volume of hisGeneral Councils(Clark's translation). Nothing will give such a vigorous idea of the confusion which then prevailed at Ephesus as a glance at Mansi's Acts of that Council. The cry "Anathema to Nestorius," the heretic against whom the Council declared, was maintained so long and so continuously that one would imagine that orthodoxy depended on strength of lungs.[214]St. Paul's zeal never outran his discretion. He never blasphemed or spoke lightly of ideas and names held sacred by his hearers. I remember in our local ecclesiastical history an example of the opposite course which has often found imitators. When Charles Wesley first visited Dublin about the year 1747, he left behind a zealous but very unwise preacher to continue his work. His language was so violent that the mob were roused to burn his meeting-house, which stood in Marlborough Street near the spot where the Roman Catholic Cathedral now stands. He then took his stand on Oxmantown Green in the northern suburbs, where he preached in the open air. On Christmas Day he took the Incarnation as his subject, and began, as St. Paul never would have done, by crying aloud, "I curse and blaspheme all gods and goddesses in heaven and earth, save the Babe that was born in Bethlehem and was wrapped in swaddling clothes," whereupon the Dublin mob with their ready wit in the matter of nick-names called the Methodists swaddlers, a title which has ever since stuck to them in Ireland, and is to this day commonly used by the Roman Catholics. This seems an interesting illustration of the typical character of the Acts.[215]See Preface by Bishop Stubbs to Benedict of Peterborough,Gesta Regis Hen. II., t. ii., pp. lxv.-lxxi. (Rolls Series); Madox,Hist. of Exchequer, pp. 84-96, for an account of the rise of the English Assize System; see Le Blant,Les Actes des Martyrs, pp. 50-121, andMarquardt's Röm. Staatsverwalt, p. 365 about Roman assizes. There were eleven circuits in Asia.[216]See Lewin'sSt. Paul, i. 337, 338.[217]A similar jealousy of voluntary organisations is still perpetuated in France under the code Napoleon, which largely embodies Roman methods and ideas.[218]I do not wish to decry the industry and learning of German critics, to whom I owe much, as my various references show; but I am always suspicious of their historical conclusions, simply because they are pure students, and are therefore ignorant of life and men. The more industrious and secluded a life a man may lead, so much the more ignorant of the practical world a man becomes, and so much the more unfitted to be a real historian, who must know men as well as books. History is a picture of real life in the past, and to paint it a man must know real life in the present. As well might we set an academic scientist who regarded all lines as straight and all bars as rigid to build the Forth Bridge, as set a man who knows nothing of human nature and how it acts under the stress of practical affairs to write the story of human life two thousand years ago. We may take and use German investigations, but we should apply English common sense and experience to test German conclusions. This rule is, I fear, too much forgotten in a great deal of the literature that is now being pawned off upon the English world in the name of criticism. Surely the fate of Baur's theories ought to be a warning to all young men against swallowing as the latest results of scholarship everything that comes clothed in the German language! The English nation has a reputation for solid common sense. What fools the Germans would be did they take everything English as full of common sense because printed in our language![219]I say to Gaul, because I take it that he would have sailed to Marseilles, which was then the great port of communication with Asia Minor, as we have noted above, pp. 372-74, when treating of the worship of Diana and its extension from the East to Marseilles.[220]There is to this day a trace of this custom in the Book of Common Prayer in the rubric which prescribes that the collect for Sunday shall be said on Saturday evening. In colleges, too, according to Archbishop Laud's rules, surplices are worn on Saturday evenings as well as on Sundays.[221]See above, pp. 342 and 361, where I have pointed out the dangerous character of the argument from mere silence. I may perhaps recur to the example of Meyer, the eminent textual critic, to illustrate my view of German critics stated in my first note to this chapter, p. 386 above. Meyer is an exhaustive textual critic, but as soon as he ventures on the region of history he falls into this trap, and concludes from the argument of silence that Apollos was never baptized with Christian baptism because he was so clever and spiritually enlightened that he did not need it. But, then, how does he account for the case of St. Paul? Was Apollos superior to St. Paul? And yet he was baptized. But the illustrations of the fallacies of this method of argumentation would be endless. If the argument of silence is sufficient to prove a negative, what are we to do with female communicants? There is not a single instance of them in the New Testament. It is here, however, that the study of the second-century writers is so valuable as illustrating the silence of the first. See my note on p. 342 above.

[163]The best description which I know of this neighbourhood is that given by Mr. Tozer in hisHighlands of Turkey, vol. ii., p. 8. St. Paul embarked at the head of the long, narrow gulf, called anciently the Thermaic Gulf, leading up to the city of Thessalonica. The Apostle must have sailed in a mere fishing smack or good-sized boat, as the iron-bound western coast of this gulf is devoid of harbours sufficient for large ships. Mr. Tozer himself sailed from Thessalonica in such a vessel, seel.c., vol. ii., p. 4: "We chartered a vessel to convey us down the bay, a six-oared Smyrna caïque, quite elegant in her appointments as compared with the ordinary lumbering market boats and coasters of these seas, and a tight little craft withal, for though not more than six feet in width, and without a deck, she had made a voyage to the Crimea during the war." Cicero, even when going as proconsul into Asia travelled in the "undecked vessel of the Rhodians," of whose weakness and slowness he complains: see his letters to Atticus, v. 12 and 13.

[164]This important work may be most easily consulted in Shilleto's translation, published in Bohn's Classical Library, Bell & Sons, London, 1886.

[165]The Emperor Hadrian, for instance, adorned Athens with expensive buildings and libraries, and enriched it with endowments. See Duhr's work, p. 44, on theJourneys of the Emperor Hadrian, published in the Proceedings of the Archæological Society of Vienna; and cf. Pausanias, i. 18.

[166]Any one wishing to consult the writings of this contemporary of St. Paul can find Philo's works translated into English in 4 vols. in Bohn's Library of Ecclesiastical Antiquity. A comparison of St. Paul's writings with those of Philo will show us the wondrous superiority of those of the Christian Apostle, owing to his inspiration by the Holy Ghost. St. Paul's writings are a perpetual feast of fat things nourishing the soul unto everlasting life. The writings of Philo are curious and interesting, but no one would dream of taking them as a spiritual guide of life.

[167]The Athenians had for a long time previous to St. Paul's visit some commercial relations with the Jewish nation. Josephus,Antiqq., XIV. 8, tells us how they erected a brass statue of the high priest Hyrcanus, as an expression of their good will to the Jewish nation. This was a hundred years before St. Paul's visit. Bayet discovered early Jewish inscriptions among the Athenian cemeteries. See hisDe Titulis Atticæ Christianis, pp. 122-24, of which we treat in a noteinfra.

[168]Pausanias, i. 15, gives a description of the Porch or Painted Chamber, the Stoa Pœcile, whence the Stoics derived their name, showing that it was close to the Agora, or market-place, where Paul disputed.

[169]That period of retirement at Tarsus may have been utilised by St. Paul in studying classical literature and Greek philosophy by way of preparation for that life's work among the Gentiles, to which he was appointed at his conversion.

[170]There are frequent notices of the altars to the unknown gods in ancient Greek writers: as in Pausanias,Description of Greece, vol. i., p. 2 (Shilleto's translation);Life of Apollonius, by Philostratus, vi., 3; Lucian'sPhilopatris, 29. See, however, for exhaustive discussions of this point, and the whole subject of the topography of ancient Athens, Lewin'sSt. Paul, vol. i., p. 242; Farrar'sSt. Paul, ch. xxvii., and Conybeare and Howson'sSt. Paul, vol. i., ch. x. Spon and Wheeler were travellers of the seventeenth century, whose works on this subject are important as showing Athens as it existed before modern changes. Some of the reports of travels in Greece, made by eminent scholars in the same century, and now very little known, may be found in the early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

[171]St. Paul shows that he could sympathise with the true element in pantheistic stoicism by his famous words which have a certain pantheistic ring, but still a very different one from that of the Stoics: "In Him we live and move and have our being."

[172]These words are directly and literally taken out of thePhænomenaof Aratus, a Greek poet of Cilicia and a fellow-countryman of the orator. He was absolutely correct, however, in saying "certain of your own poets," as the same sentiment is found in a hymn to Jupiter, composed by the Stoic philosopher and poet Cleanthes, a poem which will be found with a Latin version in Cudworth'sIntellectual System. Cleanthes was the immediate successor of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. His words therefore would have the more weight with his disciples three centuries later. He died, like a Stoic, of hunger, aged eighty, and a statue was erected to him by the Roman Senate in his native place Assos, a town of Æolis in Greece. See for more about Cleanthes and Aratus, Fabricius,Bibliotheca Græca, or Smith'sDict. Greek and Rom. Biog.

[173]As it was with the ancient image worshippers, so is it with the modern. The excuses made for the pagans in ancient times are exactly the same as those made for the image worshippers of the eighth and later centuries: see the article on Iconoclasm in theDict. Christ. Biog.

[174]Few biblical characters have been so surrounded with a haze of fable as Dionysius the Areopagite. All that we certainly know about him is from this passage in the Acts, and from two notices by Eusebius,H. E., iii. 4, and iv. 23. In theActa Sanctorumthe Bollandists bestow an immense quantity of space on Dionysius and the literature of the subject under the date Oct. 9th, in their Fourth Volume for October, pp. 696-987. The name of Dionysius became specially celebrated when about the year 500 it was attached to an impudent forgery called theHeavenly Hierarchy, from which has been largely derived the modern Roman doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and which has also exercised a great influence on the development of modern pantheism: see the article on Dionysius in vol. i. of Smith'sDict. Christ. Biog.Johannes Scotus Erigena, an Irish scholar of the ninth century, was the only man in France found capable of translating these Greek works when brought to Western Europe from the East: seeVett. Epistt. Hibernic. Sylloge, xxii., xxiii., xxiv., in Ussher's Works (Ed. Elrington), iv. 474-87. Dionysius is commemorated on Oct. 3rd in the ancient Latin Martyrologies, on Oct. 9th in the modern Roman Martyrology. The ancient Martyrologies—the ancient Roman, Ado's, Usaurd's—have a curious notice stating that Aristides the Athenian, in a work which he wrote about the Christian religion, described the martyrdom of Dionysius in the reign of Hadrian. There is no notice of this in theApologyof Aristides which has lately come to light. A curious story is told in one of his alleged letters, addressed to Polycarp. Apollophanes, a pagan sophist, was attacking Polycarp about Christianity. Dionysius tells Polycarp to remind his opponent of the miraculous darkness on the day of Crucifixion which Dionysius and Apollophanes had seen at Hierapolis, where they were then both students, when Dionysius said, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the world is in process of dissolution."

[175]The visits of the Emperor Hadrian to Athens, and his delight in that city, have been confirmed by the latest antiquarian investigations in the region of coins and inscriptions. The student who wishes to make acquaintance with the evidence on this point, which has an important bearing upon the historic proof of our holy religion, should consult the learned treatise of Julius Dürr, styled,Die Reisen der Kaisers Hadrian, (Vienna, 1881). It minutely investigates the records of Hadrian's life, and shows us that Hadrian visited and lived at Athens inA.D.125. This work was published ten years before theApologyof the Athenian Christian Aristides was discovered, serving to illustrate its history from an independent point of view. I have endeavoured to set forth the bearing of this point at greater length than I can now bestow upon it in a series of papers on theApologyof Aristides in theSunday at Homefor 1891-2. Mrs. Rendal Harris, the wife of the discoverer of it, has published an interesting work on thisApology, to which I would refer the reader (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892). TheApologyitself was published in 1891, in the series calledCambridge Texts and Studies.

[176]The testimony of Eusebius,H. E., iv. 5, is express on this point: "Down to the siege of the Jews under Hadrian there were fifteen bishops in the Church of Jerusalem, all of whom, as they say, were Hebrews from the first, and received the genuine knowledge of Christ, so that in the estimation of those able to judge they were counted worthy of the episcopal office."

[177]The whole subject of the origin and history of the primitive Church of Athens has been minutely investigated by a modern French scholar, C. Bayet, a member of the French school of antiquaries at Athens. The title of his book, to which I have already referred, isDe Titulis Atticæ Christianis Antiquissimis Commentatio(Thorin: Paris, 1878). He gives a large number of primitive Christian and Jewish inscriptions found at Athens. The above quotation from Aristides will be found in Rendal Harris's edition, p. 48, in the CambridgeTexts and Studies.

[178]This expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius, which in the providence of God brought Aquila and Priscilla into contact with St. Paul, is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius,Claudius, 25, in the following suggestive words: "He expelled the Jews who were continually creating tumults, Chestus impelling them." The tumults roused by the teaching of Christian doctrine, like those in the Thessalonian and Berœan synagogues, were evidently the origin of the edict. Aquila and Priscilla were constant travellers, and seem to have been influential Christians. We find them afterwards at Ephesus, where they tarried some time: see Acts xviii. 18, 19, 26; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; and subsequently 2 Tim. iv. 19. They also lived at Rome for a period between their two residences at Ephesus, as we learn from the fact that St. Paul sends a salutation to them in Romans xvi. 3, 4.

[179]See 1 Cor. i. 14-17: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, save Crispus and Gaius; lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." I have often heard a very wrong conclusion drawn from this passage. People think that St. Paul was here casting a certain slight upon baptism as contrasted with preaching. His meaning, however, is evident to any one who will realise the circumstances. The Corinthians were breaking up into sects, calling themselves by the names of various Christian leaders. St. Paul thanks God that very few can call themselves by his name, as they had not even the poor excuse for doing so, which his officiating at their baptism might give. To him, in God's providence, had been assigned the rough, dangerous pioneer work of preaching to the adversaries, Jews and pagans, outside the Church; to others the work of introducing the converts made by him into the Mystical Body of Christ.

[180]In vol. i., p. 270, I have pointed out that in Corinth the Christians probably adopted, not only the name, but the organisation of the synagogues.

[181]Cicero, in his oration Pro Flacco, ch. xxviii., shows how troublesome and dangerous, even to the very highest persons, the Jews at Rome could be one hundred years earlier than Gallio's day.

[182]Jeremy Taylor, in hisHoly Living, in his chapter on Prayer, has some wise remarks on vows. He includes them under the head of Prayer: "A vow to God is an act of prayer and a great degree and instance of opportunity, and an increase of duty by some new uncommanded instance, or some more eminent degree of duty or frequency of action, or earnestness of spirit in the same. And because it hath pleased God in all ages of the world to admit of intercourse with His servants in the matter of vows, it is not ill advice that we make vows to God in those cases in which we have great need or great danger." He then proceeds to lay down rules and cautions for making vows.

[183]See Procter on the Common Prayer, p. 212; Canon Evan Daniel on the Prayer Book, pp. 87 and 300.

[184]See on this subject of the confusion of Christianity with Judaism by the Romans, Wieseler'sDie Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, pp. 1-10.

[185]Meyer, in his Commentary on ch. xix. 5, enunciates the following extraordinary theory about Apollos, which plainly shows that, valuable as may be his textual criticism, his conception of Christian doctrine and of Apostolic Church life is very defective: "We may not infer from this passage that the disciples of John, who passed over to Christianity, were uniformly re-baptized; for in the case of the apostles who passed over from John to Jesus this certainly did not take place; and even as regards Apollos the common opinion that he was baptized by Aquila is purely arbitrary, as in xviii. 26 his instruction in Christianity, and not his baptism, is narrated." Again: "Apollos could dispense with re-baptism, seeing that he, with his fervid spirit, following the references of John to Christ, and the instruction of his teachers, penetrated without any new baptismal consecration into the pneumatic elements of life." Meyer evidently fails to grasp what the sacrament of baptism was, as conceived by St. Paul, and uses the most dangerous line of argument, that from silence, concluding that, because there is no mention of the Christian baptism of Apollos, therefore such a baptism never took place. But this is not all. Meyer's theory cannot possibly explain why baptism was necessary for Cornelius, though he enjoyed the gift of the Holy Ghost, while it was not necessary for Apollos, "who penetrated without any new baptismal consecration into the pneumatic element of life." Meyer says, indeed, that in the whole New Testament there is no example except in xix. 1-5 of the re-baptism of a disciple of John. But then in the Acts and Epistles, where alone we read of the administration of Christian baptism, there are only two examples of the admission of John's disciples. In one case twelve such were admitted, and they were all baptized by Paul's own order. In the case of Apollos there is silence. Surely the sounder conclusion is that Christian baptism was administered there too, though nothing is said about it! As for the apostles not being baptized with Christian baptism, the explanation is not far to seek. Baptism is the reception of a disciple into covenant with Christ through the medium of water. In the case of the apostles this reception took place in person, and not through any medium. In the apostles' case, too, there is another consideration. Meyer's conclusion is simply onee silentioeven in their case. We know not, however, everything that Christ did as regards His apostles.

[186]The movement instituted by St. John the Baptist was perpetuated into the second century, and in some measure developed into, or connected itself with, the sect subsequently called the Hemerobaptists. The history of this movement from apostolic days is elaborately traced by Bishop Lightfoot in his Essay on the Essenes, contained in hisColossians and Philemon; see especially pp. 400-407, to which we must refer the reader desirous of more information. The Hemerobaptists are mentioned in theClementine Recognitions, i. 54, theClementine Homilies, ii. 23, which date from about 200A.D., and in theApostolic Constitutions, vi. 6, which may be put down as a century later. This shows the continuity of the sect. There are still some fragments of it existing in Babylonia, under the name of Mandeans: see further the article "Sabians" in Smith'sDict. Christ. Biog., iv. 569-73.

[187]See my remarks on this topic on pp. 141, 142 of my first volume on Acts.

[188]See theDidache, orTeaching of the Twelve Apostles, concerning the methods used in preparation for baptism.

[189]See pp. 32, 33 above for some remarks on this title, the Way, used in the Acts for the Gospel Dispensation or the Christian Church. Cf. also ch. ix. 2, xix. 23, xxii. 4, xxiv. 14, and the expression the Way of Life in theDidache.

[190]Bishop Lightfoot,Colossians, Introd., p. 30, has some good remarks bearing on this topic: "How or when the conversion of the Colossians took place we have no direct information. Yet it can hardly be wrong to connect the event with St. Paul's long sojourn at Ephesus. Here he remained preaching for three whole years. It is possible, indeed, that during this period he paid short visits to other neighbouring cities of Asia; but if so, the notices in the Acts oblige us to suppose these interruptions to his residence in Ephesus to have been slight and infrequent. Yet, though the Apostle himself was stationary in the capital, the Apostolic influence and teaching spread far beyond the limits of the city and its immediate neighbourhood. It was hardly an exaggeration when Demetrius declared that 'almost throughout all Asia this Paul had persuaded and turned away much people.' The sacred historian himself uses equally strong language in describing the effects of the Apostle's preaching: 'All they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.' In accordance with these notices the Apostle himself, in an Epistle written during this sojourn, sends salutations to Corinth, not from the Church of Ephesus specially, as might have been anticipated, but from the 'Churches of Asia' generally (1 Cor. xvi. 19). St. Luke, it should be observed, ascribes this dissemination of the gospel not to journeys undertaken by the Apostle, but to his preaching at Ephesus itself. Thither, as to the metropolis of Western Asia, would flock crowds from all the towns and villages far and near. Thence they would carry away, each to his own neighbourhood, the spiritual treasure which they had so unexpectedly found."

[191]I allude, of course, to the decree of Claudius against the Jews inA.D.52, to which Suetonius (Claudius, 25) and Dio Cassius, lx. 6, refer; cf. Tacitus,Annals, xii. 52, and Lewin'sFasti Sacri,A.D.52.

[192]The story is an interesting one. It will be found in Stephens'Life of St. Chrysostom, p. 61. The Emperor Valens had discovered that some of his enemies had been endeavouring, through magical contrivances something like table-rapping, to spell out the name of his successor, and had succeeded so far that they had found out the first part of the name as Theod, but the oracle could tell nothing more. The jealous Emperor ordered every prominent man with the names Theodore or Theodosius to be slain, vainly thinking to kill his own successor. He also ordered every one found with magical books in their possession to be at once slain. Chrysostom and a friend were walking inA.D.374 on the banks of the Orontes when they saw a book floating down the stream. They stretched forth and rescued it, when, seeing that it was a magical book, they at once flung it back into the river, and not a moment too soon, as just then a police officer on detective duty appeared on the scene, from whom a moment earlier they could not have escaped. St. Chrysostom always regarded this as one of the great escapes of his life: see Art. "Chrysostom" inDict. Christ. Biog., vol. i., p. 520, and his own reference to the escape in his 38th Homily on the Acts, translated in the Oxford Library of the Fathers. Mr. Stephens,l.c., gives an account of the magical rites and their ceremonial, which was doubtless much the same inA.D.374 as inA.D.54, whence we take a brief extract: "The twenty-four letters of the alphabet were arranged at intervals round the rim of a kind of charger, which was placed on a tripod consecrated by magic songs and frequent ceremonies. The diviner, habited as a heathen priest, in linen robes, sandals, and with a fillet wreathed about his head, chanted a hymn to Apollo, the god of prophecy, while a ring in the centre of the charger was slipped rapidly round a slender thread. The letters in front of which the ring successively stopped indicated the character of the oracle."

[193]The magical books thus consigned to the flames by the Christian believers who practised magic were filled with figures or characters technically called "Ephesian letters," Γράμματα Ἐφέσια. These were mystic characters and strange words which were engraven on the crown, zone, and feet of the goddess. Clement of Alexandria discusses their use, and says the Greeks were greatly addicted to them, in hisStromata, v. 8, as translated in Clement's works, vol. ii., p. 247, in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library. The same use of curious mystic words passed over to the Manichæans and other secret sects of mediæval times. See also Guhl'sEphesiaca, p. 94 (Berlin, 1843), where all the authorities on this curious subject are collected together. Conybeare and Howson, ch. xiv., give them from Guhl in a handy shape. Great quantities of these "Ephesian letters" have been found among the Fayûm Manuscripts discovered in Egypt, which almost universally make a large use of the name Iao or Jehovah, showing their contact with Judaism.

[194]This subject properly belongs to commentators on 1 Corinthians. Paley, inHoræ Paulinæ, ch. iii., and Dr. Marcus Dods, in hisIntroduction to the New Testament, pp. 104, 105, set forth the evidence in a convenient shape. I may remark that here, as elsewhere, I adopt in the main Mr. Lewin's chronology, as contained in hisFasti Sacri. Without pledging myself to agree in all his details, his scheme forms a good working hypothesis, on which a writer can work when composing an expositor's commentary, not one for professed critics or profound scholars.

[195]The student may consult on the identification of Artemis and the Oriental or Persian deity Anaïtis, theRevue Archéologiquefor 1885, vol. ii., pp. 105-115, and Derenbourg and Saglio'sDict. des Antiq., s.v. Diana.

[196]This argument may be pressed further. The silence which we observe in much of second-century literature about the New Testament Canon and Episcopacy is of the same character. The best known and most notorious facts are those about which authors are most apt to be silent when writing for contemporaries, simply because every person acknowledges them and takes them for granted.

[197]This is manifest at once if the reader will consult Mr. Wood'sEphesusor Guhl'sEphesiaca, a work which, though published (in 1843) before modern discoveries had taught all we now know, is a most elaborate account of ancient Ephesus gleaned out of ancient writers.

[198]See on the exact time of the Macedonian and Ephesian month of Artemisius, Ussher's treatise on the Macedonian and Asiatic solar year, in the seventh volume of his works Ed. Elrington, p. 425, with which may be compared Bishop Lightfoot'sIgnatius, i. 660-700. Mr. Lewin, in hisFasti Sacri, p. 309, makes it the month of May. The Macedonian month Artemisius extended from March 25th to April 24th. This point is further discussed in Lewin'sSt. Paul, vol. i., p. 405. If St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians at or shortly before April 7th, the date of the Passover, the riot which hastened his departure must have happened within the succeeding fortnight. Bœckh, in the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions, No. 2954, inserts a long Greek inscription, found one hundred and seventy years ago at Ephesus, laying down the ceremonial to be observed in honour of the deity throughout the whole month, which Mr. Lewin translates, vol. i., p. 405. See, however, more upon this below.

[199]The Persian language was still used in the worship of Diana at Hierocæsarea and Hypæpa, two well-known towns of the province of Asia in the second century of our era. See Pausanias, v. 27; cf. Tacitus,Annals, iii. 62, and Ramsay'sHist. Geog., p. 128.

[200]Voluntary associations were formed all over Asia Minor to cultivate the worship of Artemis. Modern research, for instance, has found inscriptions raised by the Xenoi Tekmoreioi indicating their peculiar devotion to Diana and her worship. They specially flourished at a place called Saghir, near Antioch in Pisidia. It is a curious fact that the cult of the B.V.M. has been substituted for that of Artemis by the Greeks of the neighbourhood, and a feast in her honour is celebrated at the same time as the ancient feast. SeeRevue Archéologique, 1887, vol. i., p. 96; Ramsay, in hisGeography of Asia Minor, p. 409, and inJour. Hell. Studiesfor 1883.

[201]The original sacred image, which was preserved inside a screen or curtain in the inmost temple, was a shapeless mass of wood something like the prehistoric blocks of wood or stone which were esteemed at Athens and elsewhere the most venerable images of their favourite deities: see Pausanias,Description of Greece, i. 26. The legend at Ephesus was just the same as at Athens and elsewhere, that these prehistoric images had fallen down from heaven. Some of them may have been aerolites.

[202]The temple of Ephesus is depicted in Conybeare and Howson's and Lewin'sSt. Paul, as well as it could have been restored from a study of books. At the time of their publication neither Mr. Wood's discoveries had been made nor his work on Ephesus published. The plans and engravings in Mr. Wood's work of course supersede all others. The plans, etc., in the other works are sufficiently accurate to enable the reader to realise the language of the Acts.

[203]The original of this decree will be found in Bœckh'sCorp. Inscriptt. Græc., No. 2954, and the translation in Lewin'sSt. Paul, 405.

[204]There is a long account of Achilles Tatius in theBibliotheca Græcaof Fabricius. He was a pagan first, and then became a Christian. His age is uncertain, but he certainly seems to have lived when pagan feasts were still observed in their ancient splendour. The book in which he describes them is calledDe Amoribus Clitophontis et Leucippes, where in Book VI., ch. iii. there is an account of the drunkenness and idleness at the feast of Diana. The words of Achilles Tatius bring the scene vividly before us as St. Paul must have seen it: "It was the festival of Artemis, and every place was full of drunken men, and all the market-place was full of a multitude of men through the whole night." In Mason'sDiocletian Persecution, p. 361, there will be found an account of a festival celebrated in honour of Artemis in the same spring season at Ancyra in Galatia. This latter account is useful as giving us an authentic account of a Celtic festival of Diana about the year 306A.D.It would seem as if an annual public washing of the image of Diana constituted an important part of the ceremonial. Both at Ancyra as told in the Acts of St. Theodotus and at Ephesus the image of Diana was annually carried about in a waggon drawn by mules: see Guhl'sEphesiaca, p. 114. At Ancyra, during the Diocletian persecution, seven Christian virgins were dressed as priestesses of Diana and condemned to publicly wash the idol. Upon their refusal they were all drowned in the lake where the image was washed. The Seven Virgins of Ancyra are celebrated in the annals of Christian martyrdom for their heroic resistance on this occasion. See Mason,l.c., and theDict. Christ. Biog., s.v.Seven Virgins of Ancyra and Theodotus.

[205]See vol. i., pp. 8, 9.

[206]See the articles on Polycarp in theDict. Christ. Biog., iv. 426, and on Martyrs of Lyons, iii. 764. As regards Polycarp, see also Lightfoot'sIgnatius, vol. i., p. 436; and as regards the Martyrs of Lyons, see Rénan'sMarc-Aurèle, pp. 329, 331. It is interesting to notice, in the writings of St. Paulinus of Nola written about the year 400A.D., his complaints about the abuses, drunkenness and idleness, connected with the feasts and holy days observed in honour of his great patron and hero St. Felix the Martyr. A similar feeling of the moral dangers connected with religious holy days led to the abbreviation of the week's holiday following Easter and Whitsunday to Monday and Tuesday as at present.

[207]The pagan temples were almost universally destroyed about the year 400. The edicts dealing with this matter and an ample commentary upon them will be found in the Theodosian Code, edited by that eminent scholar Godefroy.

[208]An interesting confirmation of this fact came to light in modern times. In the year 1830 there was found in Southern France a piece of such Ephesian silver work wrought in honour of Artemis, and carried into Gaul by one of her worshippers. It is now deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and has been fully described in an interesting article in theJournal of Hellenic Studies, vol. iii., pp. 104-106, written by that eminent antiquary C. Waldstein.

[209]See theRevue Archéologiquefor 1886, vol. ii., p. 257, about the worship of the Ephesian Artemis in Marseilles and Southern Gaul, and an article in theJournal of Hellenic Studiesfor 1889, vol. x., p. 216, by Professor Ramsay, on the vast extent of Artemis worship in Asia. In the same journal, for 1890, vol. xi., p. 235, we have an account of the discovery of one of the original seats of Artemis worship in Eastern Cilicia by Mr. J. T. Bent; while again, in vol. iv., p. 40-43, Ramsay gives us a subscription list raised in Pisidia for the purpose of building a temple of Artemis in a country district.

[210]Aristarchus is described in the Martyrologies as the first bishop of Thessalonica, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Nero. He is commemorated on August 4th.

[211]These local parliaments under the Roman Empire have been the subject of much modern investigation at the hands of French and German scholars. See for references to the authorities on the point an article which I wrote inMacmillan's Magazinefor 1882.

[212]See the index to Lightfoot'sIgnatius and Polycarpfor extended references to the Asiarchate, and also Mommsen'sRoman Provinces(Dickson's translation), vol. i., pp. 345-7.

[213]The Ephesian mob four hundred years later displayed at the third General Council held at Ephesus in 431 an extraordinary power of keeping up the same cry for hours. See the story of the Council as told by Hefele in the third volume of hisGeneral Councils(Clark's translation). Nothing will give such a vigorous idea of the confusion which then prevailed at Ephesus as a glance at Mansi's Acts of that Council. The cry "Anathema to Nestorius," the heretic against whom the Council declared, was maintained so long and so continuously that one would imagine that orthodoxy depended on strength of lungs.

[214]St. Paul's zeal never outran his discretion. He never blasphemed or spoke lightly of ideas and names held sacred by his hearers. I remember in our local ecclesiastical history an example of the opposite course which has often found imitators. When Charles Wesley first visited Dublin about the year 1747, he left behind a zealous but very unwise preacher to continue his work. His language was so violent that the mob were roused to burn his meeting-house, which stood in Marlborough Street near the spot where the Roman Catholic Cathedral now stands. He then took his stand on Oxmantown Green in the northern suburbs, where he preached in the open air. On Christmas Day he took the Incarnation as his subject, and began, as St. Paul never would have done, by crying aloud, "I curse and blaspheme all gods and goddesses in heaven and earth, save the Babe that was born in Bethlehem and was wrapped in swaddling clothes," whereupon the Dublin mob with their ready wit in the matter of nick-names called the Methodists swaddlers, a title which has ever since stuck to them in Ireland, and is to this day commonly used by the Roman Catholics. This seems an interesting illustration of the typical character of the Acts.

[215]See Preface by Bishop Stubbs to Benedict of Peterborough,Gesta Regis Hen. II., t. ii., pp. lxv.-lxxi. (Rolls Series); Madox,Hist. of Exchequer, pp. 84-96, for an account of the rise of the English Assize System; see Le Blant,Les Actes des Martyrs, pp. 50-121, andMarquardt's Röm. Staatsverwalt, p. 365 about Roman assizes. There were eleven circuits in Asia.

[216]See Lewin'sSt. Paul, i. 337, 338.

[217]A similar jealousy of voluntary organisations is still perpetuated in France under the code Napoleon, which largely embodies Roman methods and ideas.

[218]I do not wish to decry the industry and learning of German critics, to whom I owe much, as my various references show; but I am always suspicious of their historical conclusions, simply because they are pure students, and are therefore ignorant of life and men. The more industrious and secluded a life a man may lead, so much the more ignorant of the practical world a man becomes, and so much the more unfitted to be a real historian, who must know men as well as books. History is a picture of real life in the past, and to paint it a man must know real life in the present. As well might we set an academic scientist who regarded all lines as straight and all bars as rigid to build the Forth Bridge, as set a man who knows nothing of human nature and how it acts under the stress of practical affairs to write the story of human life two thousand years ago. We may take and use German investigations, but we should apply English common sense and experience to test German conclusions. This rule is, I fear, too much forgotten in a great deal of the literature that is now being pawned off upon the English world in the name of criticism. Surely the fate of Baur's theories ought to be a warning to all young men against swallowing as the latest results of scholarship everything that comes clothed in the German language! The English nation has a reputation for solid common sense. What fools the Germans would be did they take everything English as full of common sense because printed in our language!

[219]I say to Gaul, because I take it that he would have sailed to Marseilles, which was then the great port of communication with Asia Minor, as we have noted above, pp. 372-74, when treating of the worship of Diana and its extension from the East to Marseilles.

[220]There is to this day a trace of this custom in the Book of Common Prayer in the rubric which prescribes that the collect for Sunday shall be said on Saturday evening. In colleges, too, according to Archbishop Laud's rules, surplices are worn on Saturday evenings as well as on Sundays.

[221]See above, pp. 342 and 361, where I have pointed out the dangerous character of the argument from mere silence. I may perhaps recur to the example of Meyer, the eminent textual critic, to illustrate my view of German critics stated in my first note to this chapter, p. 386 above. Meyer is an exhaustive textual critic, but as soon as he ventures on the region of history he falls into this trap, and concludes from the argument of silence that Apollos was never baptized with Christian baptism because he was so clever and spiritually enlightened that he did not need it. But, then, how does he account for the case of St. Paul? Was Apollos superior to St. Paul? And yet he was baptized. But the illustrations of the fallacies of this method of argumentation would be endless. If the argument of silence is sufficient to prove a negative, what are we to do with female communicants? There is not a single instance of them in the New Testament. It is here, however, that the study of the second-century writers is so valuable as illustrating the silence of the first. See my note on p. 342 above.

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