The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL AT EPHESUS. 3?5
them very forcibly that, since Asia was a senatorial, not an imperial province,
and was therefore governed by a Proconsul with a few officials, not by a
Propraetor with a legion, they were responsible for good order, and would
most certainly be held accountable for any breach of the peace. A day of
disorder might forfeit the privileges of years. The Recorder's speech, it has
been said, is the model of a popular harangue. Such excitement on the part
of the Ephesians was undignified, as the grandeur of their worship was nnim-
peached ; it was unjustifiable, as they could prove nothing against the men ;
it was unnecessary, as other means of redress were open ; and, finally, if
neither pride nor justice availed anything, fear of the Roman power 1 should
restrain them. They felt thoroughly ashamed, and the Recorder was now
able to dismiss them from the theatre.
It is not, however, likely that the danger to St. Paul's person ceased, in a
month of which he had spoiled the festivity, and in a city which was thronged,
as this was, with aggrieved interests and outraged superstitions. Whether
he was thrown into prison, or what were the dangers to which he alludes, or
in what way God delivered him " from so great a death," * we cannot tell. At
any rate, it became impossible for him to carry out his design of staying at
Ephesus till Pentecost.3 All that we are further told is that, when the hubbub
4 had ceased, he called the disciples together, and, after comforting them, bade
the Church farewell certainly for many years, perhaps for ever.* He set
out, whether by sea or by land wo do not know, on his way to Macedonia. From
Silas he had finally parted at Jerusalem. Timothy, Titus, Luke, Erastus, were
all elsewhere; but Gaius and Aristarchus, saved from their perilous position
in the theatre, were still with tihem, and he was now joined by the two
Ephesians, Tychicus and Trophimus, who remained faithful
close of his career.
to him till the
very
The Church which he had founded became the eminent Christian metro-
polis of a line of Bishops, and there, four centuries afterwards, was held the
great (Ecumenical Council which deposed Nestorius, the heretical Patriarch
6 " "
of Constantinople. But its candlestick has been for
"
centuries removed out
of his place ;
" 7 the squalid Mohammedan village which is nearest to its site
does not count one Christian in 8
its insignificant population its ; temple is a
1
Hackett, p. 246. There was nothing on which the Romano looked with such jealousy
as a tumultuous meeting, " Qui coetum et conceutum fecerit capitals sit" (Sen. Conlrov.
iii. 8). The hint would not be likely to be lost on Demetrius.
* 2 Cor. i. 10.
s The period of his stay at Ephesus was rpttrCav oAiji/ (Acts xx. 31). The ruin called
"the prison of St. Paul" may point to a true tradition that he was for a time confined,
and those who see in Rom. xvi. 3 20, the fragment of a letter to Ephesus, suppose that
his imprisonment was shared by his kinsmen Andronicus and Juntas, who were " of note
among the Apostles," and earlier converts than himself.
4 Acts XX. 1, *-apa/caAc'