Paul and the Silversmiths

“Oh the streets of Ephesus/Are paved with marble./ Ancient footsteps/ are everywhere.” The Virgin Mary lived out her last years here. John the beloved disciple had his Revelations and is buried here. On the orders of Cleopatra Mark Antony killed her sister Arsinoe here, despite her seeking refuge in the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the world, a building whose grand dimensions dwarfed the Parthenon but of which nothing remains. The Library of Celsius was the third largest in Roman times after Alexandria and Pergamon. But somehow Ephesus was never on our radar, until today. It is certainly on Christian radar, because of St. Paul’s letters, which he wrote after he essentially had been driven out of town. Artemis was not just revered here as the patron goddess, she was good business: the local silversmiths who sold little figurines of her to pilgrims didn’t appreciate sermons from a foreign tent maker about false idols and graven images. So they held a riot in the city theatre, the largest in the world at that time, 25,000 people waving little silver fetishes and declaiming “Great is Artemis of Ephesus!” and forcing Paul into hiding until he could catch a boat out of town. Maybe he went to Mary’s house, she lived in a mountain overlooking it all.Read more