CHAPTER II

THE EPHESUS ROOM (PLATE II.)

PASSING through the doorway at the end of the Roman Gallery (Frontispiece) and across the end of the Egyptian Gallery (Plate VII., p. 95), we come to the Ephesus Room (Plate II.) where are shown the remains of the great Temple of Diana at Ephesus.

But first we may notice in the ante-room a number of Greek statuettes, amongst the earliest of which, dating about two or three centuries B.C., is a representation of a Virgin and Child. It might easily be mistaken for an image of Romish origin, and is a striking illustration of the fact that the worship of a Virgin and Child was prominent in many of the heathen religions of the world long before our Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem.1

As the germ of all Messianic prophecy is contained in Gen. 3. 15, so the germ of all heathen mythology is found there also. We need not wonder that the words addressed to the serpent concerning the seed of the woman were perverted by him. "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." What a triumph for the serpent (who is himself represented on so many objects in the Museum), when Christian truth became mixed

1 See Rev. Alexander Hislop, in The Two Babylons,

with pagan mythology, and the worship of the Virgin and Child was incorporated with the Christian religion!

In the Ephesus Room we stand among the ruins of that very building which the Apostle Paul saw when he visited that city; and the nineteenth chapter of the Acts has a new meaning when we read it amid the shattered columns of the great temple. Beneath those huge pillars the excited mob raged when "the whole city was filled with confusion," and "all with one voice, about the space of two hours, cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" We can almost hear the echo of their shouts ! The story is worth reading again in presence of the ruins. "Demetrius, a silver-smith which made silver shrines for Diana," called together the craftsmen and workmen, and told them how "almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth."

The town-clerk found it very difficult to appease the people. He thought there was not the slightest danger of the temple suffering from the preaching of these men, but he was afraid that they themselves would get into trouble. Nero and his governors might hear of the disturbance. "For we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse," and thus "he dismissed the assembly."1

But Demetrius was right after all.

The temple was

doomed, its magnificence has been destroyed, and we

1 Acts 19. 23-41.

THE TEMPLE OF DIANA

II

can stand in London in the midst of the ruins. These give some little idea of the grandeur and vastness of the building itself. A plan is shown in the illustration behind the sculptured fragments (Plate II., p. 9), and the gigantic blocks help us to picture it. The huge pillars consisted first of the square base surmounted by the sculptured drum (Plate II., p. 9), then there was the fluted column ending far above in an ionic capital (Plate II., p. 9).

Demetrius and the mob drove the apostle away, but not before he had, by his preaching, founded the Church at Ephesus. When later he sent his epistle to the Church there, he spoke of another temple of which the believers at Ephesus formed a part. "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."1

As we sit among the ruins of the heathen temple, which was rightly considered one of the wonders of the world, we think of this other which can never be destroyed. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it."2 The living stones are even now being quarried in all parts of the world, for God is still working like Solomon of old, when he said: "Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house."

The glory of God's temple will, one day, not merely fill Asia, or even the world, but rather will be revealed to the whole universe.

As we leave this room we notice on the right of the door a bust of Alexander the Great. Daniel had