II
A RIOT IN EPHESUS
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"
And about that time there arose no small stir concerning the new faith. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no little business unto the craftsmen;
RUINS OF GREAT GREEK THEATER AT MILETUS.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood and used by special permission.
Miletus once was one of the leading centers of Greek civilization, which began to decay in Paul's day.
"Even in Homer, the 'Carian Miletus' appears as a place of renown. Eighty colonies went forth from the banks of the Maeander, and some of them were spread even to the eastern shores of the Black Sea and beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the west. It received its first blow in the Persian war, when its inhabitants, like the Jews, had experience of a Babylonian captivity. It suffered once more in Alexander's great campaign; and after his time it gradually began to sink towards its present condition of ruin and decay, from the influence, as it would seem, of mere natural causes,--the increase of alluvial soil in the delta having the effect of removing the city gradually farther and farther from the sea. Even in the Apostle's time, there was between the city and the shore a considerable space of level ground, through which the ancient river meandered in new windings, like the Forth at Stirling. Few events connect the history of Miletus with the transactions of the Roman Empire. When St. Paul was there, it was simply one of the second-rate seaports on this populous coast, ranking, perhaps, with Adramyttium or Patara, but hardly with Ephesus or Smyrna."
whom he gathered together, with the workmen of like occupation, and said, "Sirs, ye know that by this business we have our wealth. And ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they are no gods, which are made with hands: and not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana be made of no account, and that she should even be deposed from her magnificence, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth." And when they heard this, they were filled with wrath, and cried out, saying,