Archæology and the Bible

by George A. Barton

To the west of the acropolis lies the old Areopagus, or Mars’ Hill ([Fig. 273]), from which it was long supposed that Paul made the address recorded in Acts 17:22-31. Ramsay,[319] following Curtius, has made it probable that the address was delivered to the city-fathers of Athens, not because they were putting Paul to a judicial trial, but because they wished to see whether he was to be allowed to teach Christianity, which they took for a new philosophy, in the university of Athens—for Athens itself was a kind of university. It seems probable that the meetings of the city-fathers, who were collectively called the Areopagus (Acts 17:22), were held not on the top of the rock, but in the market-place. The Athenian altar “to an unknown god” is treated in Part II, [Chapter XXVII], § 2.

2. Corinth.—From Athens, Paul went to Corinth, where he spent a year and a half (Acts 18:1, 11). Corinth was one of the old cities of Greece. In Homeric and earlier times it appears to have been subject to Argos. Situated on the isthmus between northern Greece and the Peloponnesus, the sea-trade of Corinth made it an important city. It rose to prominence in the seventh century before Christ. At some early time foreigners from the east, probably Phœnicians, had settled in Corinth and established the worship of the Semitic goddess Astarte on Acro-Corinthus, a hill that rises some five hundred feet above the city. The goddess was here known as Aphrodite,[320] and the debasing character of her worship tended to foster that lack of sensitiveness in matters of social morality with which Paul deals in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. The trade of Corinth made it rich and its riches excited the enmity of Rome. It was accordingly destroyed by the Romans in 146 B. C., but a century later was rebuilt by Julius Cæsar. Ancient Corinth has now entirely vanished.

Excavations were begun at Corinth by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1896 under the direction of the late Prof. Rufus B. Richardson. The work has been carried forward season by season ever since.[321] Although there were no topographical indications to help the excavators at the start, the theater, the Agora or market-place, a Roman street, the road to Lechæum, and the temple of Apollo have been discovered; (Figs. [274], [276]).

Of greatest interest to the student of the Bible is a stone discovered in 1898 on the Lechæum road near the propylæa, or gateway leading to the market-place. This stone once formed the lintel of a door and bore an inscription in Greek letters. Although the beginning and the end of the two words written on it are broken away, it is clear that the inscription was “Synagogue of the Hebrews.”[322] The cutting of the letters was poorly done, and the block was a second-hand one, adapted from some other use. It seems probable, therefore, that the Jewish community at Corinth was not wealthy. The block was of considerable size and so was probably found not far from where the synagogue stood. If so, this synagogue, which is probably identical with the one in which Paul preached (Acts 18:4), stood on the Lechæum road not far from the market-place. Other discoveries in the neighborhood indicate that this was a residence quarter of the city, and we learn from Acts 18:7 that the house of Titus Justus, where apparently Paul organized the first church in Corinth, “joined hard to the synagogue.” The house of Justus must, then, have been here, and the Lechæum road often echoed to the footsteps of Paul. Probably the judgment-seat to which the Jews dragged Paul for the hearing before Gallio (Acts 18:12) was in the market-place, so that the excavations have revealed to us the parts of Corinth of special interest to a reader of the Bible.

3. The Churches of Asia.

(1) Ephesus was situated on the Cayster river in western Asia Minor, about three miles from the sea, but in ancient times the sea was navigable up as far as the city. Cities which form the point of contact between land and sea traffic become in most countries populous and wealthy. In western Asia Minor four cities, situated at the mouths of the four river valleys through which caravans could proceed into the interior, became populous and important. These were Miletus (see Acts 20:15, 17, f.) at the mouth of the Mæander, Ephesus at the mouth of the Cayster, Smyrna at the mouth of the Hermus, and Pergamum on the Caicus. In the earliest times known to us Ephesus was eclipsed in importance by Miletus, but before the beginning of the Christian era Ephesus had outstripped her rival. This was due to several causes, one of which was the partial silting up of the harbor of Miletus. In Roman times Ephesus lay on the great line of communication between Rome and the East in general.[323] In later centuries the harbor of Ephesus was in its turn silted up, and the site is now deserted except for a neighboring wretched Turkish village.

In Homer’s Iliad[324] the Carians are called the “barbarous-speaking Carians.” This would indicate that they were not Greek, and it is thought by some that they may at this time have been of Hittite stock. Miletus was in Caria, and at that time Ephesus also. It is certain that the earliest inhabitants of Ephesus were not Greek, but of Asiatic origin. They established here, either on a mountain top about five miles from the sea, just above the modern railway station of Ayassuluk, or on a mountain a little to the south, the worship of an Asiatic goddess, probably Hittite. Later, in the seventh century before Christ, the Ionian Greeks came and settled among the Asiatics. They identified the goddess with their own Artemis (Authorized Version, Diana), and moved her temple down into the plain,[325] where it continued to stand far into Christian times. In the sixth century B. C. Ephesus was conquered by the Lydians, and then by the Persians. In later centuries it passed under the control of Alexander the Great, of the Seleucidæ of Syria, and of the kings of Pergamum. In 133 B. C. it passed with the rest of the kingdom of Pergamum into the hands of Rome and became a part of the Roman Province of Asia. Because of its situation it quickly became the most important city of the province. It was noted for its wealth and its commerce. Rome became the patron of Hellenic culture in the East, so Ephesus was, of course, made an architecturally beautiful city.

At first Pergamum was the capital of the Province of Asia. In the second and third centuries of the Christian era Ephesus had become the capital. Buchner[326] thinks that this transfer was made in the reign of Claudius, 41-54 A. D. If this were true, Ephesus was the capital of the province at the time of Paul’s residence there, but there is considerable doubt about the facts, and in the beginning of the second century A. D. Pergamum still ranked as the official capital.[327]

The temple of Artemis lay about two miles to the northeast of the ancient city. Its site was determined in 1869 by the English explorer, J. T. Wood, who partially excavated it (1869-1874).[328] Wood brought to light various marble fragments which are preserved in the British Museum, but he was more interested in making conjectural restorations of the temple than in telling what he found. As he was not an expert in ancient architecture his work is, accordingly, unsatisfactory. In 1904-1905, the British Museum employed Mr. Hogarth to complete the excavation of the site. Hogarth carried the excavation down to the virgin soil, and, being a skilled archæologist, he was able to reconstruct the history of the building.[329]

There seems to have been a small tree shrine on the site of the temple before the Ionians came. Between the seventh century and the fifth, three different structures were erected on the spot. The last of these was called the temple of Crœsus, because this king of Lydia presented some beautiful columns to it, though the structure was not completed till a century after his time, or 430 B. C. This structure was burned in 356 B. C. on the night that Alexander the Great was born. Later a larger temple, 425 by 220 feet, was built on the site, with the help of contributions from the whole of Asia. This was standing until long after Paul’s time. It was very beautiful. Some of the porphyry columns now in Santa Sophia at Constantinople are said to have been taken from it. It has been thought by some that this beautiful temple suggested to Paul his figure in 1 Cor. 3:10-17, since the words were written from Ephesus.