Acts 19:30

τοῦ δὲ Π. βουλ.: St. Paul was not the man to leave his comrades in the lurch, and he would have followed them with his life in his hands to face the mob of Ephesus; if we may depend upon the picture of Ephesian life given us in Pseudo-Heraclitus, Letter vii., we can understand the imminent danger in which St. Paul was placed at the mercy of men who were no longer men but beasts, ἐξ ἀνθρώπων θηρία γεγονότες (Die Heraklitischen Briefe, p. 65 (Bernays), and Ramsay, u. s., p. 280). δῆμον, Acts 19:33; Acts 12:22; Acts 17:5, so sometimes in classical Greek of the plebs, vulgus in N.T. only in Acts. Both before and after the riot the passions of the vulgar mob were no doubt a real and serious danger to St. Paul, cf. 1 Corinthians 15:32; 1Co 16:9, 2 Corinthians 1:8-10. In the former passage the word ἐθηριομάχησα is generally referred to this danger in Ephesus, the multitude in its ferocious rage being compared to wild beasts, see Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 230, “Ephesus,” Hastings' B.D., and Plumptre's note, in loco. With the expression used in 1 Corinthians 15:32 we may compare Ignat., Rom., Acts 19:1, and cf. Ephes., vii. 1; Smyrn., iv., 1; so too Pseudo-Heraclitus, u. s., and Renan, Saint Paul, p. 351, note; Grimm-Thayer, sub v. McGiffert, p. 280 ff., maintains that the word ἐθηριομάχησα refers to an actual conflict with wild beasts in the arena (so Weizsäcker), and that 2 Corinthians 1:9 more probably refers to the danger from the riot of Demetrius; but if the literal interpretation of the verb in 1 Cor. is correct, it is strange that St. Paul should have omitted such a terrible encounter from his catalogue of dangers in 2 Corinthians 11:23; see also below at end of chapter.