The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL AT EPHE3U8. 373
thing, however, was generally known, winch was, that the people whose proceedings
were the cause for the tumult were of Jewish extraction, and a
Greek mob was never behindhand in expressing its detestation for the
Jewish race. The Jews, on the other hand, felt it hard that they, who had
long been living side by side with the Ephesians in the amicable relations of
commerce, should share the unpopularity of a sect which they hated quite as
much as the Greeks could do. They were anxious to explain to the Greeks
and Romans a lesson which they could not get them to learn namely, that
tho Jews were not Christians, though the Christians might be Jews. Accord-
ingly they urged Alexander to speak for them, and explain how matters really
stood. This man was perhaps the coppersmith who, afterwards also, did
Paul much evil, and who would be likely to gain the hearing of Demetrius
and his workmen from similarity of trade. This attempt to shift tho odium
on the shoulders of tho Christians entirely failed. Alexander succeeded in
struggling somewhere to the front, and stood before the mob with outstretched
hand in the attempt to win an audience for his oration. But no sooner had
the mob recognised the well-known traits of Jewish physiognomy than they
vented their hate in a shout of " Great is Artemis l of the Ephesians!" which
was caught up from lip to lip until it was reverberated on every side by the
rocks of Prion and Coressus, and drowned all others in its one familiar and
unanimous roar.
For two hours, as though they had been howling dervishes, did this mongrel
Greek crowd continue incessantly their senseless 2
yell. By that time they
were sufficiently exhausted to render it possible to get a hearing. Hitherto
the authorities, afraid that these proceedings might end in awakening Roman
jealousy to a serious curtailment of their privileges, had vainly endeavoured to
stem the torrent of excitement but ; now, availing himself of a momentary
lull, the Recorder of the city either the mock officer of that name, who was
chosen by the Senate and people for tho Artemisia, or more probably the
permanent city official succeeded in restoring order.8
It may have been all
It is, however, very unlikely that St. Paul actually fought with wild beasts. The ex-
pression was recognised as a metaphorical one (2 Tim. iv. 17), avb Svpt'as /ue'xpi Pw/-"i*
^npioitaxS, (Ignat. Horn, c. 5) ; oloty eijpiW naxo^efla (Appian, Bell. Civ. p. 273). A legend
naturally attached itself to the expression (Niceph, H. E. ii. 25). The pseudo-Heraclitus
(Ep. vii.), writing about this time, says of the Ephesians, | avdpuTnav %>ia yeytn-dTes.
Moreover, St. Paid uses the expression in a letter written before this wild scene at Ephesus
had taken place.
1
1 preserve the Greek name because their Asian idol, who was really Cybele, had still
less to do with Diana than with Artemis.
2
They probably were so far corrupted by the contact with Oriental worship as to
regard their "vain repetitions in the light of a religious function " (see 1 Bangs xviii. 2G ;
Matt. vi. 7). Moreover, they distinctly believed that the glory, happiness, and perpetuity
of Ephesus was connected with the maintenance of a splendid ritual. On the discovered
inscription of the decree which dedicated the entire month of May to the Artemisian
Paneguris, are these concluding words : OVTU yap rl rb apeivov TTJ OpijancfMS yu'Oju.&Tjs ^ r