[199] The Persian language was still used in the worship of Diana at Hierocæsarea and Hypæpa, two well-known towns of the province of Asia in the second century of our era. See Pausanias, v. 27; cf. Tacitus, Annals, iii. 62, and Ramsay's Hist. Geog., p. 128.
[200] Voluntary associations were formed all over Asia Minor to cultivate the worship of Artemis. Modern research, for instance, has found inscriptions raised by the Xenoi Tekmoreioi indicating their peculiar devotion to Diana and her worship. They specially flourished at a place called Saghir, near Antioch in Pisidia. It is a curious fact that the cult of the B.V.M. has been substituted for that of Artemis by the Greeks of the neighbourhood, and a feast in her honour is celebrated at the same time as the ancient feast. See Revue Archéologique, 1887, vol. i., p. 96; Ramsay, in his Geography of Asia Minor, p. 409, and in Jour. Hell. Studies for 1883.
[201] The original sacred image, which was preserved inside a screen or curtain in the inmost temple, was a shapeless mass of wood something like the prehistoric blocks of wood or stone which were esteemed at Athens and elsewhere the most venerable images of their favourite deities: see Pausanias, Description of Greece, i. 26. The legend at Ephesus was just the same as at Athens and elsewhere, that these prehistoric images had fallen down from heaven. Some of them may have been aerolites.
[202] The temple of Ephesus is depicted in Conybeare and Howson's and Lewin's St. Paul, as well as it could have been restored from a study of books. At the time of their publication neither Mr. Wood's discoveries had been made nor his work on Ephesus published. The plans and engravings in Mr. Wood's work of course supersede all others. The plans, etc., in the other works are sufficiently accurate to enable the reader to realise the language of the Acts.
[203] The original of this decree will be found in Bœckh's Corp. Inscriptt. Græc., No. 2954, and the translation in Lewin's St. Paul, 405.
[204] There is a long account of Achilles Tatius in the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius. He was a pagan first, and then became a Christian. His age is uncertain, but he certainly seems to have lived when pagan feasts were still observed in their ancient splendour. The book in which he describes them is called De Amoribus Clitophontis et Leucippes, where in Book VI., ch. iii. there is an account of the drunkenness and idleness at the feast of Diana. The words of Achilles Tatius bring the scene vividly before us as St. Paul must have seen it: "It was the festival of Artemis, and every place was full of drunken men, and all the market-place was full of a multitude of men through the whole night." In Mason's Diocletian Persecution, p. 361, there will be found an account of a festival celebrated in honour of Artemis in the same spring season at Ancyra in Galatia. This latter account is useful as giving us an authentic account of a Celtic festival of Diana about the year 306 A.D. It would seem as if an annual public washing of the image of Diana constituted an important part of the ceremonial. Both at Ancyra as told in the Acts of St. Theodotus and at Ephesus the image of Diana was annually carried about in a waggon drawn by mules: see Guhl's Ephesiaca, p. 114. At Ancyra, during the Diocletian persecution, seven Christian virgins were dressed as priestesses of Diana and condemned to publicly wash the idol. Upon their refusal they were all drowned in the lake where the image was washed. The Seven Virgins of Ancyra are celebrated in the annals of Christian martyrdom for their heroic resistance on this occasion. See Mason, l.c., and the Dict. Christ. Biog., s.v. Seven Virgins of Ancyra and Theodotus.
[205] See vol. i., pp. 8, 9.
[206] See the articles on Polycarp in the Dict. Christ. Biog., iv. 426, and on Martyrs of Lyons, iii. 764. As regards Polycarp, see also Lightfoot's Ignatius, vol. i., p. 436; and as regards the Martyrs of Lyons, see Rénan's Marc-Aurèle, pp. 329, 331. It is interesting to notice, in the writings of St. Paulinus of Nola written about the year 400 A.D., his complaints about the abuses, drunkenness and idleness, connected with the feasts and holy days observed in honour of his great patron and hero St. Felix the Martyr. A similar feeling of the moral dangers connected with religious holy days led to the abbreviation of the week's holiday following Easter and Whitsunday to Monday and Tuesday as at present.
[207] The pagan temples were almost universally destroyed about the year 400. The edicts dealing with this matter and an ample commentary upon them will be found in the Theodosian Code, edited by that eminent scholar Godefroy.
[208] An interesting confirmation of this fact came to light in modern times. In the year 1830 there was found in Southern France a piece of such Ephesian silver work wrought in honour of Artemis, and carried into Gaul by one of her worshippers. It is now deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and has been fully described in an interesting article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. iii., pp. 104-106, written by that eminent antiquary C. Waldstein.