Acts 19:35

Acts 19:35. And when the town-clerk had appeased the people. This official was a personage of great importance in these free Greek cities. He was a magistrate whose functions in some respects corresponded to those fulfilled by the recorder of modern times in England. His immediate duty consisted in the guardianship and tabulation of the state paper and archives of the city, and in drawing up the public records, and in sending them out to the public civic assemblies. This officer also was authorised to preside over public gatherings of the citizens. We find the name γραμματεύς; (recorder) engraved on marbles set up as memorials of some public ceremony. It seems probable that this office was a permanent one, unlike that of the Asiarch, which merely lasted a year. This would account for the ‘town-clerk' addressing and dismissing the people. His influence was no doubt greater than even the presiding Asiarch of the year. There is a strong contrast between the effect of his words on the people and that of ‘Alexander the Jew.' The people evidently listened with all attention to the harangue of the ‘town-clerk,' and seemed at once to have dispersed at his request.

The city of Ephesus is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana. The Greek word rendered ‘worshipper' is a remarkable one (νεωκο ́ ρον). Its literal meaning is ‘temple-sweeper' (Lat. aedituus). It answers to the Christian ‘Sacristan,' originally a title of one employed in the lowest offices connected with a temple. Its connection with the divinity supposed to dwell within the hallowed walls of the fane, invested the appellation with an unearthly dignity; and the proudest cities became eager to appropriate a title which seemed to connect them in a peculiarly close relation with the deity of whose earthly house they were the recognised guardians. So in the case of great and magnificent Ephesus, the city's proudest title to honour was its loving care for the worship of the great Artemis (Diana). It assumed the title νεωκόρος, paraphrased rather than translated by ‘worshipper,' and we find it constantly on the city coins. This singular title was assumed not unfrequently by individuals who claimed to have rendered special services to the goddess or her temple. So, for instance, the Roman Emperors Hadrian, Elagabalus, Caracal la, and Geta, each styled himself the neokoros of the Ephesian Artemis. The better MSS. omit the Greek equivalent for ‘goddess,' the ‘great Artemis' of Ephesus being so well known as to need no prefix of goddess. We find some Ephesian inscriptions in which she is described as ‘the greatest,' ‘the most high.'

The appeal of the ‘town-clerk' to his fellow-citizens to preserve order would at once conciliate every Ephesian heart by this ready and graceful allusion to the well-known favourite appellation of the city. It was as though he said, ‘My fellow-citizens, why imperil your cherished privileges and affront Rome by an unseemly uproar about a question which after all no sensible man could ever entertain; for, does not all the civilised world know how loyal Ephesus is to her great protecting goddess? These strange men these poor, shabby, homeless Jews can never shake our allegiance to and the world's belief in that mighty Artemis there,' no doubt pointing to the proud and stately temple in full view of the crowded audience.

Of the image which fell down from Jupiter. Like many other venerated idols of the old Pagan world, the strange and hideous statue of the Ephesian Artemis was supposed to have fallen from the skies. In like manner tradition ascribed a heavenly origin to the Diana of Tauris, the Minerva (Athene), Polias of Athens, the Ceres of Sicily, the Cybele of Pessinus, and the Venus of Paphos; to these we may add the Palladium of Troy and the Ancile at Rome. It is not improbable that some of them may have been meteoric stones, possibly employed by the sculptor in ancient times, when he was shaping the idol.