Epistles, however, we have some further references to Ephesus and to Paul’s care for the Church there. In 1 Timothy (i. 3), as we have seen, we find that Timothy had been placed in the city with a view to the preservation of sound doctrine, and that Paul desired him to remain there when he himself went into Macedonia; and in 2 Timothy mention is made both of the way in which Onesiphorus ministered to Paul in Ephesus (i. 18), and of the fact that Tychicus was sent by Paul to Ephesus (iv. 12). The relations, therefore, between Paul and this Church were of the closest and most con- fidential kind. As to the composition of the Christian community, it appears to have included from the first both Jews and Greeks (Acts xix. 1-10, xx. 21). The Gentile element, however, seems to have been the larger and to have grown more and more, so that the Epistle deals with the Church as practically a Gentile-Christian body.
In 1 Peter (i. 1) those in Asia, including doubtless the members of the metropolitan Church, are named among the strangers scattered throughout various lands, towards whom the writer has a certain re- sponsibility and to whom he addresses his Epistle. In the Apoca- lypse which bears the name of John, the Church of Ephesus appears among the seven Churches of Asia to which John’s message is directed ; and that the Ephesian Church was recognised as the chief of the seven may be inferred perhaps from the fact that it has the first place in the list and in the address (i. 11, ii. 1). It is also with John that tradition connects the Ephesian Church after Paul's decease. Of its later history, it is enough to say that it long retained its importance among the Churches, and that, among other things, it was the seat of one of the great CEcumenical Councils (a.p. 431), and also of the notorious Robber-Synod (a.p. 440).
8. Toe Episttp—its GENERAL CHARACTER, CONTENTS AND PLAN, Among the Epistles bearing the name of St. Paul there is none greater than this, nor any with a character more entirely its own. There have been students, it is true, who with an almost incredible lack of insight have considered it an insipid production or a tedious and unskilful compilation. Among these must be named even so acute a scholar as De Wette. Such pronouncements, however, belong to the failures and eccentricities of criticism, and count for little. With few exceptions scholars of all different schools who have studied and interpreted this Epistle have been at one in regarding it as one of the sublimest and most profound of all the New Testa- ment writings. In the judgment of many who are well entitled to deliver an opinion, it is the grandest of all the Pauline letters. There is a peculiar and sustained loftiness in its teaching which has deeply