27
attempted to establish an identification with their own Artemis on account of certain analogies between them. Ac- cording to Jerome, Prefat. ad Ephesios, the Ephesian Artemis was represented as a figure with many breasts, multimammia (“quam Greci πολύμµαστον vocant”), symbolising the reproductive and nutri- tive powers of Nature which she personi- fied. This description is fully borne out by the common representations of the goddess on coins and statues. No one could say for certain of what the ἄγαλμα was made: according to Petronius it was made of cedar wood, according to Pliny of the wood of the vine, according to Xen. of gold, and according to others of ebony. For a fuller description of the image, and for some account of the wide prevalence of worship of the god- dess and its peculiar character, Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, “ Diana of the Ephesians,” Hastings’ B.D., B.D.?; Wendt, 1888, in loco; Farrar, St. Paul, ii., p. 13, and references in Wetstein.
Ver. 36. ἀναντιῤῥήτων: only here in N.T., but the adverb in x. 29, not in LXX but Symm., Job xi. 2, xxxiii. 13; Polyb., xxiii.,8, 11; on spelling see critical note.—Séov ἐστὶν, 1 Peter i. 6 (x Tim. v. 13), cf. Ecclus., Prol., vv. 3, 4, 1 Macc. xii. 11, 2 Macc. xi. 18, also in classical Greek.—mpowerés : only in Luke and Paul in N.T., 2 Tim. iii. 4, of thought- less haste (Meyer-Weiss); in LXX of rash talk, cf. Prov. x. 14, xiii. 3, Ecclus. ix. 18, Symm., Eccles. v. 1, Clem. Rom., Cor., i., 1, of persons.—kateotadpévous, see also on ver. 35; only in these two verses in N.T.
Ver. 37. yap: “for,” ἐ,ε., they had done something rash.—rovs ἄνδρ. τούτους: Gaius and Aristarchus, tepoovdous,. ‘robbers of temples,” R.V., in A.V. “of churches,” the word “church” being applied as often in the Elizabethan age to pagan temples. Ramsay however renders ‘guilty neither in act nor in language of disrespect to our goddess,” i.e., to the established religion of our city, ἱεροσυλία = Latin, sacrilegium, and here for emphasis the speaker uses the double term οὔτε ἵεροσ. οὔτε βλασφ., “«0πατςῃες, Robbers of,” Hastings’ B.D., Ramsay, and St. Paul, pp. 260, 282, 4or.
418
οὔτε βλασφημοῦντας thy! θεὰν ὑμῶν.