“In the Steps of St. Paul.”

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVI, Issue 94, 30 November 1936, Page 4

“In the Steps of St. Paul.”

A SERIES OF ARTICLES BY

H. V. MORTON.

ARTICLE No. 37

“Great is Diana of the Ephesians. ” The traveller who stands to-day on the site of the great Temple of Diana at Ephesus recalls these words as he gazes over a scene worse than desolation. Not only is there nothing left of the temple that was once one of the Seven Wonders of the world, but the site has become submerged beneath a malarial marsh. 1 walked through a cornfield and came to a pool in which the groundplan of the great temple is measured in stagnant water. The surface is covered with a small white water-weed, and the croaking of thousands of frogs rises perpetually from the marsh. Their constant rattle seems to form itself into the words: “Great is Diana, great is Diana, great is Diana, great is Diana. ...” Then, as my footfall gave the alarm, there was a brief silence, followed by an uncertain croak, as one or two of the bolder frogs gained confidence, of: “Of the Ephesians. . . Then the full chorus began again: “Great is Diana, great is Diana, great is Diana. ...” Nothing has filled me in all my travels with a greater sense of pathos than this waterlogged site in Asia Minor. If in two thousand years’ time some student of England, wandering among marshes and brambles on I aidgate Hill, looked in vain for some relic of St. Paul’s, he might feel as 1 felt that bright morning as 1 listened to the frogs of Ephesus. Ephesus in St. Paul’s time was one of the most prosperous cities in the world. The Ephesians had for centuries exploited their strange, manybreasted goddess, a mummy-like figure of a woman, who was believed to perform miracles, heal the sick, and to appear in person at times of crisis. Her temple was an immense and powerful organisation of priests, vestal virgins, flute players, heralds, trumpeters, sceptre bearers, theologians, thurifers. sweepers of the sanctuary, Tobers of the goddess, dancers and acrobats. A special force of mounted police guarded the interests of the temple. This building was the largest and most splendid temple in the ancient world. Jt was four times the size of tin* Parthenon. Those who have not seen the Parthenon may, perhaps, get •i better idea of its size by imagining a biulding not quite so broad as, but over twice the length of, the British Museum. In the centre of this stood the statue of Diana of Ephesus, made either from ce<lar, ebony, or vinestock; ancient authorities differ on this point. A veil from ceiling to floor hid the goddess except during ceremonies in the temple. For one month in every year the festival of the goddess— the Artemisiae—attracted thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Asia Minor and the Aegean. The. harbours were tilled with foreign ships, and for one month no work was done, while the crowds enjoyed a festive programme of daily ceremonies, athletic contests, plays, musical contests ami solemn sacrifices. If was during such festivals that the silversmiths of Ephesus sold thousands of little shrines of the goddess to the pilgii'ms. It was on the profits of this trade that they grew rich.. That was why the guild of silver-, smiths, Jed by Demetrius, organised the riot described in Acts, beceause a preacher named Paul had dared to threaten the supremacy of the great Diana, and incidentallyy, of their profitable trade. This scream of vested interests is one of the most vivid ami life-like incidents in the Acts of the Apostles, and I think you will agree that St. Luke, who wrote it. must actually have seen the riot, or had a fust-hand account of it from someone who had seen It. While I stood fascinated by the site of the great temple of Diana. I thought that any visitor who goes to the British Museum can see more of it than the man who painfully travels to Asia Minor! In the Ephesus Room arc to lie seen the sculptured temple drums which Paul may have touched when he was at Ephesus. Their • lining the years 1869-74 is one of the romances of archaeology. So completely had rhe temple disappeared, that some people evt'h <loul.t-.-l that it had ever existed. Mr .1. T. Wood, who was financed by the British Museum, went out in 1863 determined to find the site, and after six years of toil, in a climate that sapped his health, his faith and determination were splendidly rewarded. Mr Wood’s

success was due to his skill in following up a. clue. -die discovered an inscription which stated that the. processions of images from the Temple to the Theatre of Ephesus passed, in through the Magnesian (late and went .back thoi'ugh the Corcssian Gate. • » • • • Wood knew of neither of these gates. But, eventually, with funds running low, he found them, and, by following the line of the ancient roads from these gates, he hit at hist on the site of the temple where, to his intense joy, he discovered the platform and some of the columns lying buried under twentytwo feet of silt and marsh. What a moment that was in Wood’s life! He describes it in his bulky and discursive book “Discoveries at. .Ephesus,” and, for myself, I would, count all the things most people covet well lost for a moment of triumph such as that of Wood at Ephesus and Schliemann at Troy. These are among the things really worth doing in life, yet how odd it is that there is not one word of biographical detail about Wood in either the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the Dictionary of National Biography. A walk of fifteen minutes along a dusty road took me to the ruins of Ephesus. 1 saw a wide marsh surrounded on all sides by picturesque hills, save to the west, where the marsh runs out towards the sea. In St. Paul’s time the sea was much nearer. Ships sailed right up to Ephesus. But to-day the Cayster River has silted up, depositing 'miles of river mud, and the sea is about six miles away, ami is no longer visible from Ephesus. The ruins of Ephesus are most impressive. There an* marble roads scored deep with the marks of chariot wheels; there are immense market, places overgrown with grass and trees; there are long, marble streets which once were lined with hundreds of statues and now stand bleak and forlorn running into the marsh. But the most impressive ruin of all is that of the great theatre mentioned in the Acts of tin* Apostles as the scene of the silversmiths’ riot. This theatre used to seat 24,5(H) spectators. Although the marble seats have been stripped, the tiers still run up. one above the other, in a graceful half-circle. Fig trees grow here and there from the seats, and as you climb up you have to make a way through the brambles. Hitting as J did. all alone in the empty ruined theatre at Ephesus, how real and vivid becomes chapter xix. of the Acts. Perhaps in the very scat in which 1 read this chapter some angry Ephesian shouted. “Great is Diana,” when the mob leaders proclaimed that throughout all Asia Minor this man Paul had declared that there are no gods made with hands. What a perfect piece of close-knit writing. ’. J doubt whether the muddleheadedness of a mob has ever been better described than in these words: “Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: for the assembly was confnsexl; and the more part knew not wherefore they wen.* come together.” And how complete is the character of the town clerk, a crisp, official person

who says the sort of thing that any town clerk would say to any unruly mo.b, bidding them keep cool and do nothing rash and remember that the law courts are the proper place for such disputes. I. climbed down from the theatre and followed the bones of a marble road that, ran from the theatre to the harbour. Paul must have walked along this very road a hundred times. Now it lies waterlogged, with rushes sprouting from the marble flagstones and frogs croaking in the marsh. What was once the proud harbour of Ephesus is a huge expanse of bog-land where the storks fish for frogs. And once again, sitting on the capital of a fallen column, I remained still as a stone, watching frogs spring from the water and, swelling their throats in the sun. give voice to that chorus: “Great is Diana, great is Diana, great is Diana, great is Diana. ...” Then, as I moved my foot there would be silence broken in a minuter by a querulous, uncertain “ . . . of the Ephesians. ’ ’ (Article No. 38 will appear in our next issue.)