it was a place of paramount religious interest. It was the centre of the worship of the goddess who was known among the Greeks as Artemis and among the Romans as Diana. The temple erected in her honour was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, a splendid structure of shining marble, stated by Pliny (Nat. Hist., xvi., 40, 213) to have been 425 feet long and 220 wide (but by Mr. J. T. Wood to have measured 343 feet by 164), with 127 columns some 60 feet high. It is reported to have taken about 220 years to finish, In it was treasured an image of the goddess which was believed to have fallen from heaven in remote times. Behind the shrine was the “ treasury,” which was the bank of Asia. The temple was destroyed by the Goths in Α.Ρ. 262.
Magnificent as the temple was, it was not the only architectural wonder possessed by Ephesus. There was the great theatre, on the west side of Mount Coressus, a vast structure, the largest Greek theatre in Asia Minor and in the ancient Greek world, reputed to accommodate 50,000 spectators. North of it was the stadium, where races were run and wild beast fights were conducted, It was the temple, however, that made the chief glory of the city. It was the temple that added more than anything else to its importance. The chief boast of Ephesus was the title of νεωκόρος, or “ temple-warden ” (literally “ temple-sweeper”’), rendered “ worshipper” in Acts xix, 35 by the AV, and “temple-keeper” by the RV. It is true that the title was more usually given to Asiatic cities as wardens of temples of the Imperial worship, and Ephesus was νεωκόρος first of one temple, then of two, and later still even of three. But an inscription of the second century and coins of the third bear witness to the fact stated in Acts xix. 35 that Ephesus had the title of Warden of the Temple of. Diana (cf. Prof. Ramsay’s article on “ Ephesus” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible), This vast temple was not the only sacred structure that found a place on the slopes of the hill which made the original religious centre. Here was built the great Christian Church which was dedicated by Justinian to St. John the Evangelist. Here, too, at a later date, was erected the mosque which is reported to have been one of the best specimens of Arabian- Persian art.
2, THe CuurRcH IN Epuesus. It is with the great names of Paul and John that the story of the primitive Christian community in Ephesus is specially associated, both in the New Testament itself and in tradition. John’s connection with the Ephesian Church be- longs to the latter part of the first century. We have every reason to believe that, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion