Acts 19:26

Moreover ye see and hear Better, And ye, &c. They were eyewitnesses of what had taken place in Ephesus, and the falling-off in the demand would be made known from all the country round, for the preaching and preachers spread far and wide.

that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia Beside Ephesus itself we have only notices through St Paul's writings of churches founded at Colossæ, Laodicæa and Hierapolis. But in the Apocalypse we find beside these, Pergamus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia, places whose position shews us that through about two-thirds of the coastline of Asia important centres of Christian life were formed before that book was written, and we cannot doubt that from St Paul and his fellow-workers the Gospel was preached in all that district. Hence the alarm of Demetrius.

this Paul If we think of the bodily presence of St Paul which he himself always describes as insignificant, and which would be familiar to the hearers of Demetrius, we can fancy the scorn which would be thrown into the words as they fell from angry lips.

hath persuaded and turned away, &c. From their devotion to Artemis, and so from the purchase of shrines.