in Ephesus, where he employed himself most diligently for the spread of the gospel, and where he not only died, at a very old age, but was buried, with Mary the mother of the Lord. Some make John bishop of the Ephesian communities, while others ascribe that honour to Timothy. In the book of Revelations (ii. 1) a favourable testimony is borne to the Christian churches at Ephesus.

The classic celebrity of this city is chiefly owing to its famous temple, and the goddess in whose honour it was built, namely, Diana of the Ephe siaus. This goddess has been already noticed, and a figure given of her famous image at Ephesus [ARTEMIS].

Around the image of the goddess was afterwards erected, according to Callimachus (Hymn. in Dian. 218), a large and splendid temple:

τοῦ δ ̓ οὔ τι θεώτερον ὄψεται ώς

Οὐδ' ἀφνειότερον ῥέα κεν Πυθῶνα παρέλθοι· This temple was burnt down on the night in which Alexander was born, by an obscure person of the name of Eratostratus, who thus sought to transmit his name to posterity; and, as it seemed somewhat unaccountable that the goddess should permit a place which redounded so much to her honour to be thus recklessly destroyed, it was given out that Diana was so engaged with Olympias, in aiding to bring Alexander into the world, that she had no time nor thought for any other concern. At a subse quent period, Alexander made an offer to rebuild the temple, provided he was allowed to inscribe his name on the front, which the Ephesians refused. Aided, however, by the whole of Asia Minor, they succeeded in erecting a still more magnificent temple, which the ancients have lavishly praised and placed among the seven wonders of the world. It took two hundred and twenty years to complete. Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 21), who has given a description of it, says it was 425 feet in length, 220 broad, and supported by 127 columns, each of which had been contributed by some prince, and were 60 feet high: 36 of them were richly carved. Chersiphron, the architect, presided over the undertaking, and, being ready to lay violent hands on himself, in consequence of his difficulties, was restrained by the command of the goddess, who appeared to him during the night, assuring him that she herself had accomplished that which had orought him to despair. The altar was the work of Praxiteles. The famous sculptor Scopas is said by Pliny to have chiselled one of the columns. Apelles, a native of the city, contributed a splendid picture of Alexander the Great. The rights of sanctuary, to the extent of a stadium in all directions round the temple, were also conceded, which in consequence of abuse the Emperor Tiberius abolished. The temple was built of cedar, cypress, white marble, and even gold, with which it glittered (Spanh. Observat. in Hymn. in Dian. 353). Costly and magnificent offerings of various kinds were made to the goddess, and treasured in the temple; such as paintings, statues, &c., the value of which almost exceeded computation. The fame of the temple, of the goddess, and of the city itself, was spread not only through Asia but the world, a celebrity which was enhanced and diffused the more readily because sacred games were practised there, which called competitors and spectators from every country. Among his other enormities Nero is said to have despoiled the temple of Diana of much of its treasure. It continued

to conciliate no small portion of respect, till it was finally burnt by the Goths in the reign of Gallienus.

At Ephesus Diana was worshipped under the name of Artemis. There was more than one divinity which went by the name of Artemis, as the Arcadian Artemis, the Taurian Artemis, as well as the Ephesian Artemis. It will be seen, from the figure already given, that this last differed materially from the Diana, sister of Apollo, whose attributes are the bow, the quiver, the girt-up robe, and the hound; whose person is a model of feminine strength, ease, and grace; and whose delights were in the pursuits of the chace.Along the shady hills and breezy peaks Rejoicing in the chace, her golden bow

She bends, her deadly arrows sending forth. The silver shrines of the Ephesian Artemis, mentioned in Acts xix. 24, have been already noticed [DEMETRIUS, 3].

Among the distinguished natives of Ephesus in the ancient world, may be mentioned Apelles and Parrhasius, rivals in the art of painting, Heraclitus, the man-hating philosopher, Hipponax, a satirical poet, Artemidorus, who wrote a history and description of the earth. The claims of Ephesus, however, to the praise of originality in the prosecution of the liberal arts, are but inconsiderable; and it must be content with the dubious reputation of having excelled in the refinements of a voluptuous and artificial civilization. With culture of this kind a practical belief in, and a constant use of, those arts which pretend to lay open the secrets of nature and arm the hand of man with supernatural powers, have generally been found conjoined. Accordingly, the Ephe sian multitude were addicted to sorcery; indeed, in the age of Jesus and his Apostles, adepts in the occult sciences were numerous: they travelled from country to country, and were found in great numbers in Asia, deceiving the credulous multitude and profiting by their expectations. They were sometimes Jews, who referred their skill and even their forms of proceeding to Solomon, who is still regarded in the East as head or prince of magicians (Joseph. Antiq. viii. 2, 5; Acts viii. 9; xiii. 6, 8). In Asia Minor Ephesus had a high reputation for magical arts (Ortlob, De Ephes. Libris combustis).

The books mentioned, Acts xix. 19, were doubtless books of magic. How extensively they were in use may be learnt from the fact that the price of them was fifty thousand pieces of silver.' Very celebrated were the Ephesian letters ('Epéσia ypaμuara), which appear to have been a sort of magical formula written on paper or parchment, designed to be fixed as amulets on different parts of the body, such as the hands and the head (Plut. Sym. vii.; Lakemacher, Obs. Philol. ii. 126; Deyling, Observ. iii. 355). Erasmus (Aday. Cent. ii. 578) says that they were certain signs or marks which rendered their possessor victorious in everything. Eustathius (ad Hom. Odys. † 694) states an opinion that Croesus, when on his funeral pile, was very much benefited by the use of them; and that when a Milesian and an Ephesian were wrestling in the Olympic games, the former could gain no advantage, as the latter had Ephesian letters bound round his heel; but, these being discovered and removed, he lost his superiority and was thrown thirty times. These passages

show the feeling which prevailed respecting the books that were brought and burned, and serve to illustrate the remark made by the writer of the Acts, 'So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed.'

The ruins of Ephesus lie two short days' journey from Smyrna, in proceeding from which towards the south-east the traveller passes the pretty village of Sedekuy; and two hours and a half onwards he comes to the ruined village of Danizzi, on a wide, solitary, uncultivated plain, beyond which several burial-grounds may be observed; near one of these, on an eminence, are the supposed ruins of Ephesus, consisting of shattered walls, in which some pillars, architraves, and fragments of marble have been built. The soil of the plain appears rich. It is covered with a rank, burnt-up vegetation, and is everywhere deserted and solitary, though bordered by

picturesque mountains. A few corn-fields are scattered along the site of the ancient city, whicn is marked by some large masses of shapeless ruins and stone walls. Towards the sea extends the ancient port, a pestilential marsh. Along the slope of the mountain and over the plain are scattered fragments of masonry and detached ruins, but nothing can now be fixed upon as the great temple of Diana. There are some broken columns and capitals of the Corinthian order of white marble: there are also ruins of a theatre, consisting of some circular seats and numerous arches, supposed to be the one in which Paul was preaching when interrupted by shouts of, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' The ruins of this theatre present a wreck of immense grandeur, and the original must have been of the largest and most imposing dimensions. Its form alone can now be spoken of, for every seat is removed,

and the proscenium is a hill of ruins. A splendid circus (Fellows' Reports, p. 275) or stadium remains tolerably entire, and there are numerous piles of buildings seen alike at Pergamus and Troy as well as here, by some called gymnasia, by others temples; by others again, with more propriety, palaces. They all came with the Roman conquest. No one but a Roman emperor could have conceived such structures. In Italy they have parallels in Adrian's villa near Tivoli, and perhaps in the pile upon the Palatine. Many other walls remain to show the extent of the buildings of the city, but no inscription or ornaanent is to be found, cities having been built out of this quarry of worked marble. The ruins of the adjoining town, which arose about four hundred years ago, are entirely composed of materials from Ephesus. There are a few huts within these ruins (about a mile and a half from Ephesus), which

still retain the name of the parent city, Asalook--a Turkish word, which is associated with the same idea as Ephesus, meaning the City of the Moon (Fellows). A church dedicated to St. John is thought to have stood near, if not on the site of, the present mosque. Arundell (Discoveries, vol. ii. p. 253) conjectures that the gate, called the Gate of Persecution, and large masses of brick wall, which lie beyond it, are parts of this celebrated church, which was fortified during the great Council of Ephesus. The tomb of St. John was in or under his church, and the Greeks have a tradition of a sacred dust arising every year, on his festival, from the tomb, possessed of miraculous virtues: this dust they term manna. Not far from the tomb of St. John was that of Timothy. The tomb of Mary and the seven raidla (boys, as the Synaxaria calls the Seven Sleepers) are found in an adjoining hill. At the back of the mosque,

on the hill, is the sunk ground-plan of a small church, still much venerated by the Greeks. The sites of two others are shown at Asalook. There is also a building, called the Prison of St. Paul, constructed of large stones without cement.

Though Ephesus presents few traces of human life, and little but scattered and mutilated remains of its ancient grandeur, yet the environs, diversified as they are with hill and dale, and not scantily supplied with wood and water, present many features of great beauty. Arundell (ii. 244) enumerates a great variety of trees, which he saw in the neighbourhood, among which may be specified groves of myrtle near Ephesus. He also found heath in abundance, of two varieties; and saw there the common fern, which he met with in no other part of Asia Minor.

Dr. Chaudler (p. 150, 4to) gives a striking description of Ephesus, as he found on his visit in 1764-Its population consisted of a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility, the representatives of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their greatness-some the substructure of the glorious edifices which they raised; some beneath the vaults of the stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions; and some in the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchres which received their ashes. Such are the present citizens of Ephesus, and such is the condition to which that renowned city has been reduced. It was a ruinous place when the Emperor Justinian filled Constantinople with its statues and raised the church of St. Sophia on its columns. Its streets are obscured and overgrown. A herd of goats was driven to it for shelter from the sun at noon, and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult its silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theatre and of the stadium. The pomp of its heathen worship is no longer remembered; and Christianity, which was then nursed by apostles, and fostered by general councils, barely lingers on, in an existence hardly visible. However much the Church at Ephesus may (Rev. ii. 2), in its earliest days, have merited praise for its 'works, labour, and patience,' yet it appears soon to have left its first love,' and to have received in vain the admonition- Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.' If any repentance was produced by this solemn warning, its effects were not durable, and the place has long since offered an evidence of the truth of prophecy, aud the certainty of the divine threatenings, as well as a melancholy subject for thought to the contemplative Christian. Its fate is that of the onceBourishing seven churches of Asia: its fate is that of the entire country-a garden has become a desert. Busy centres of civilization, spots where the refinements and delights of the age were collected, are now a prey to silence, destruction, and death. Consecrated first of all to the purposes of idolatry, Ephesus next had Christian temples almost rivalling the pagan in splendour, wherein the image of the great Diana lay prostrate before the cross; and, after the lapse of some centuries, Jesus gives place to Mahomed, and the crescent glittered on the dome of the recently Christian church. A few more scores of years,

and Ephesus has neither temple, cross, crescent nor city, but is a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness. Even the sea has retired from the scene of devastation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up ships laden with mer chandise from every part of the known world (Herod. i. 26, ii. 148; Liv. i. 45; Pausan. vii. 2, 4; Philo, Byz. de 7 Orb. Mirac, Gronov. Thesaur viii.; Crenzer, Symbol. ii. 13; Hassl, Erdbeschr ii. 132; for a plan of Ephesus, see Kiepert Atlas von Hellas; Arundell's Visit to the Seren. Churches of Asia; Fellows' Excursion in Asia Minor, 1839; Discoveries in Asia Minor, by Rev. T. Arundell, 1834).-J. R. B.

EPHOD, an article of dress won by the He brew priests. [PRIESTS.]

EPHRAIM (DEN; Sept. 'Epalu), the younger son of Joseph, but who received prece dence over the elder in and from the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xli. 52; xlviii. 1). That blessing was an adoptive act, whereby Ephraim and his brother Manasseh were counted as sons of Jacol. in the place of their father; the object being to give to Joseph, through his sons, a double portion in the brilliant prospects of his house. Thus the descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas every other of Jacobs sons counted but as one. There were thus, in fact, thirteen tribes of Israel; but the number twelve is usually preserved, either by excluding that of Levi (which had no territory), when Ephraim and Manasseh are separately named, or by counting these two together as the tribe of Joseph, when Levi is included in the account. The intentions of Jacob were fulfilled, and Ephraim and Manasseh were counted as tribes of Israel at the departure from Egypt, and as such shared in the territorial distribution of the Promised Land (Num. i. 33; Josh. xvii. 14; 1 Chron. vii. 20). The precise position of the immediate desceudants of Joseph in Egypt might form an interesting subject for speculation. Being the sons of one in eminent place, and through their mother connected with high families in Egypt, their condition could not at once have been identified wit that of the sojourners in Goshen; and perha; they were not fully amalgamated with the rest of their countrymen until that king arose who knew not Joseph.

At the departure from Egypt, the population of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh together amounted to 72,700 men capable of bearing arms, greatly exceeding that of any single tribe, except Judah, which had somewhat more. During the wandering, their number increased to 95,200, which placed the two tribes much higher than even Judah. At the Exode, Ephraim singly had 40,500, and Manasseh only 32,200; but a great change took place in their relative numbers during the wandering. Ephraim lost 8000, and Manasseh gained 20.500; so that just before entering Canaan, Ephraim stood at 32,500, and Manasseh at 52,700. At the departure from Egypt, Ephraim, at 40,500, was above Manasseh and Benjamin in numbers; at the end of the wandering it was, at 32,500, above Simeon only, which tribe had suffered a still greater loss of numbers (comp. Num. i. and xxvi.).

One of the finest and most fruitful parts of

from one apostle alone, but from all the four principal apostles; so that one and the same divine truth is presented to our eyes in various forms as it were in various mirrors, by which its richness and manifold character are the better displayed. The Epistles of the New Testament divide themselves into two parts-the PAULINE and the so-called CATHOLIC.

The PAULINE Epistles are thirteen in number; or fourteen, if we add to them the Epistle to the Hebrews. Up to our days their genuineness has almost unanimously been recognised in Germany, with the exception only of the pastoral epistles, and more especially the first letter to Timothy. Eichhorn and Bauer have attacked the genuineness of all the three pastoral epistles, and Schleiermacher that of the first epistle to Timothy. Indeed, the very peculiar character of the Pauline Epistles is so striking to any one who is not ignorant of the want of ease and originality conspicuous in the counterfeit writings of early times, as to leave not the least doubt of their genuineness. Depth of thought, fire of speech, firmness of character-these manly features, joined withal to the indulgence of feelings of the most devoted love and affection, characterize these epistles. The amiable personal character of the apostle may be most beautifully traced in his Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon.

All the Epistles, except the one to the Romans, were called forth by circumstances and particular occasions in the affairs of the communities to which they were addressed. Not all, however, were preserved; it is, at least, evident, from 1 Cor. v. 9, that a letter to the Corinthians has been lost; from Col. iv. 16, it has also been concluded-though probably erroneously, since there perhaps the letter to the Ephesians is referred to that another letter to the community of Laodicea has likewise been lost. Press of business usually compelled Paul what was, besides, not uncommon in those times-to use his companions as amanuenses. He mentions (Gal. vi. 11), as something peculiar, that he had written this letter with his own hand. This circumstance may greatly have favoured the temptation to forge letters in his name, because since the period of Alexandrine literature it was not unusual to indite spurious books, as is evident from Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. p. 23); and even Christian bishops made complaints about the falsification of their letters. Paul alludes to this (2 Thes. ii. 2), and therefore writes the greeting (2 Thes. iii. 17) with his own hand. Paul himself exhorted the communities mutually to impart to each other his letters to them, and read them aloud in their assemblies (Col. iv. 16). It is therefore probable that copies of these letters had been early inade by the several communities, and deposited in the form of collections. So long therefore as the various communities transmitted the manuscripts to each other, no other letters, it is obvious, could come into the collections than those to whose genuineness the communities to whom they were originally addressed, bore witness. Even Peter (2 Pet. iii. 16) seems to have had before him a number of Paul's letters, as, about forty years later, a number of letters of Ignatius were transmitted by Polycarp to Smyrna, while the church of Philippi forwarded to him those directed to them (Ep. Polic. sub fin.; Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 36).

This Pauline collection, in contra-distinction t the gospels, passed by the name of & à¤óσrodos.

The letters of Paul may be chronologically arranged into those written before his Roman iniprisonment, and those written during and after it : thus beginning with his first letter to the Thessa lonians, and concluding with his second to Timothy, embracing an interval of about ten years (A.D. 54-64). In our Bibles, however, the lett re are arranged according to the pre eminent parts and stations of the communities to whom t ey were addressed, and conclude with the epistles to the two bishops and a private letter to Philemon.

That the Epistles offered great dificulties wis already felt in the earliest times (2 Peter i i. 16% In the Roman Church their true understanding was more particularly lost by the circumstance that it understood by THE LAW, only the opus operatum of the ceremonial law; consequently the Roman Church could not comprehend "justification by faith, and tanght instead justification by works; as soon, therefore, as the true understanding of the Pauline epistles dawned up Luther, his breach with the Roman Church was decided.

Among the more ancient interpreters of the Pauline letters Chrysostom and Calvin deserve particular distinction; though the former, with all his zeal and psychological penetration, was still deficient in the true hermeneutic method.

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.-There is, in the first instance, a diversity of opinion respecting their name: some refer it to their WRITERS letters from all the other apostles who had entere, the stage of authorship along with Paul;; some, again, to their CONTENTS (letters of no special but genetal Christian tenor); others, again, to the RECEIVERS (letters addressed to no community in particular), None of these views, however, is free from difficulties. The first and the second views—and inore especially the first-cannot be brought to harmo nize with the idiomatic expressions in the extant pages of the ancient writers; the second i besides, contradicted by the fact that the letter of James is of a special tenor, while, on the contrary, that to the Romans is of such a general character as to deserve the name CATHOLIC in that sense. The third opinion is most decidedly justified by passages from the ancient writers (Euseb Hist. Eccles. v. 18; Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. 15, ed. Pottes, p. 606 : Orig. c. Cels. i. 63). The Pauline Epistles had all their particular directions, while the letters of Peter, James, 1 John, and Jude were circular epistles. The Epistles 2 and 3 Jolas were subsequently added, and included on account of their shortness, and to this collectionn was given the name CATHOLIC LETTERS, in contradistinction to the PAULINE, which were called & áróσтoλos.— A. T.

EPISTLES OF THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS. Under this head we shall biely notice those remains of Christian antiquity which are ascribed to the writers usually styled the Apostolic Fathers, from the circumstance that they were converted to the Christian faith during the life-time, and probably by the instrumentality, of the Apostles. Of Barnabas and the epistle which bears his name we have already spoken at length [BARNABAS].

1. CLEMENT, or CLEMENS ROMANUS. It will probably be generally admitted that no produe