The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL A.T EPHE8T7S. 361
her worship he has no scorn too intense. The dim twilight of hor auytum is
symbolical of a vileuess that hateth the light. He supposes that her image
is " stonen " in the contemptuous sense in which the word is used by Homer
on which she
i.e., idiotic and brutish. He ridicules the inverted pyramid
stands. He says that the morals which flourish under her protection are
worse than those of beasts, seeing that even hounds do not mutilate each
other, as her Megabyzus has to be mutilated, because she is too modest to be
served by a man. But instead of extolling her modesty, her priests ought
rather to curse her for lewdness, which rendered it unsafe otherwise to approach
her, and which had cost them so dear. As for tho orgies, and the
torch festivals, and the antique rituals, he has nothing to eay of them, except
that they are the cloak for every abomination. These things had rendered
him a lonely man. This was the reason why he could not langh. How could
he laugh when he heard the noises of these infamous vagabond priests, and
was a witness of all the nameless iniquities which flourished so rankly in con-
sequence of their malpractices the murder, and waste, and lust, and gluttony
and drunkenness ? And then he proceeds to moral and religious exhortations,
which show that we are reading the work of some Jewish and unconverted
A polios, who is yet an earnest and eloquent pvoclaimer of the one God and
the Noaehian law.
In this city St. Paul saw that " a great door and effectual was open to
him," though there were " l
many adversaries." During his absence an event
had happened which was to be of deep significance for the future. Among the
myriads whom business or pleasure, or what is commonly called accident, had
brought to Ephesus, was a Jew of Alexandria named Apollonius, 8 or Apollos,
who not only shared the culture for which the Jews of that city were famousin
tho age of Philo, but who had a profound knowledge of Scripture, and a
special gift of fervid eloquence. 3 He was only so far a Christian that he
knew and had accepted tho baptism of John; but though thus imperfectly ac-
quainted with the doctrines of Christianity, he yet spoke and argued in the
synagogue with a power and courage which attracted the attention of the
Jewish tent-makers Priscilla and Aquila. They invited him to their house,
and showed him the purely initial character of John's teaching. It may have
been the accounts of the Corinthian Church which he had heard from them
that made him desirous to visit Achaia, and perceiving how useful such a
ministry as his might be amoug the subtle and intellectual Greeks, thsy not
only encouraged his wish, 4 but wrote for him " letters of commendation " 5 to
the Corinthian elders. At Corinth his eloquence produced a great sensation,
and he became a pillar of strength to the brethren. He had so thoroughly
profited by that reflection of St. Paul's teaching which he had caught from
Priscilla and Aquila, that in his public disputations with the hostile Jews
ha proved from their own Scriptures, with an irresistible cogency, the
1 ICor. ivi. 9. SoinD.
s Acts xviii. 25, &iav *% T^u^an (cf. Rom. xii. 11).
4
vjwprjrlpa'Oi, 80. *Mv (Acts xvili.
5
27).