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 EPHESUS

491

EPHESUS

but both are attested as early as the latter part of the second century by St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., Ill, iii, 4), Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V, xxi), Clement of Alexandria, the "Acta Joannis", and a little earlier by St. Justin and the Montanists. Byzantine tradition has always shown at Ephesus the tomb of the Apostle. Another tradition, which may be trustworthy, though less ancient, makes Ephesus the scene of the death of St. Mary Magdalen. On the other hand the opinion that the Blessed Virgin died there rests on no ancient testimony; the often quoted but ambiguous text of the Council of Ephesus (4.31), means only that there was at that time at Ephesus a church of the Virgin. (See Ramsay in "Expositor", June, 1905, also his "Seven Cities of Asia".) We learn, moreover, from Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, x.xiv) that the three daughters of the Apostle St. Philip were buried at Ephesus.

About 110 St. Ignatius of Antioch, having been greeted at Smyrna by messengers of the Church of Ephesus, sent to it one of his seven famous epistles. During the first three centuries, Ephesus was, next to Antioch, the chief centre of Christianity in Asia Minor. In the year 190 its bishop, St. Polycrates, held a coun- cil to consider the paschal controversy and declared himself in favour of the Quartodeciman practice; nevertheless the Ephesian Church soon conformed in this particular to the practice of all the other Churches. It seems certain that the sixth canon of the Council of Nic£ea (325), confirmed for Ephesus its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole " diocese ' ' or civil territory of Asia Minor, i. e. over eleven ecclesiastical provinces; at all events, the second canon of the Council of Con- stantinople (3S1) formally recognized this authority. But Constantinople was already claiming the first rank among the Churches of the East and was trying to annex the Churches of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus. To resist these encroachments, Ephesus made common cause with .Alexandria. We therefore find Bishop Memnon of Ephesus siding with St. Cyril at the Third fficumenical Council, held at Ephesus in 431 in condemnation of Nestorianism, and another bishop, Stephen, supporting Dioscorus at the so- called Robber Council (Littrocinium Ephesinum) of 449, which approved the heresy of Eutyches. But the resistance of Ephesus was overcome at the Council of Chalcedon (451), whose famous twenty-eighth canon placed the twenty-eight ecclesiastical provinces of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Henceforth Ephesus was but the second metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, nor did it ever recover its former standing, despite a council of 474 in which Paul, the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria restored its ancient rights. Egyptian influence was responsible for the hold which Monophysitism gained at Ephesus during the sixth century; the famous ecclesiastical historian, John of Asia, was then one of its bishops. The metropolis of Ephesus in those days ruled over thirty-six suffragan sees. Justinian, who imi- tated Constantine in stripping the city of many works of art to adorn Constantinople, built there a magnificent church consecrated to St. John ; this was soon a famous place of pilgrimage.

Ephesus was taken in 655 and 717 by the Arabs. Later it became the capital of the theme of the Thracesians. During the Iconoclastic period two bishops of Ephesus suffered martyrdom, Hypatiiis in 735 and Theophilus in the ninth century. In the same city the fierce general Lachanodracon put to death thirty-eight monks from the monastery of Pele- cete in Bithynia and other partisans of the holy images. In 899 Leo the Wise transferred the relics of St. Mary Magdalen to Constantinople. The city was captured in i090 and destroyed Ijy the Seljuk Turks, but the Byzantines succeeded in retaking it and rebuilt it on the neighbouring hills around the church

of St. John. Henceforth it was commonly called Hagios Theologos (the holy theologian, i. e. St. John the Divine), or in Turkish Aya Solouk (to the Greeks the Apostle St. John is "the Theologian"); the French called the site Altelot and the Italians Alto Lungo. At the beginning of the thirteenth century its metropolitan, Nicholas Mesarites, had an impor- tant role at conferences between the Cireeks and the Latins. The city was again plundered by the Turks in the first years of the fourteenth century, then by the Catalonian mercenaries in the pay of the Byzan- tines, and once more by the Turks. The chiu'ch of St. John was transformed into a mosque, and the city w-as ruled by a Turkish ameer, who carried on a little trade with the West, but it could no longer maintain its Greek bishop. A series of Latin bishops governed the see from 1318 to 1411. The ruin of Ephesus was completed by Timur-Leng in 1403 and by nearly a half-century of civil wars among its Turkish masters. When at the Council of Florence in 1439 Mark of Ephesus (Marcus Eugenicus) showed himself so haughty towards the Latins, he was the pastor of a miserable village, all that remained of the great city which Pliny once called alterum lumen Asia:, or the second eye of Asia (Hist, nat., V, xxix; also Apoc, ii, 5; cf. W. Brockhoff, "Ephesus vom vierten ehrist- lich. Jhdt. bis seinem Untergang", Jena, 1906).

To-day Aya Solouk has 3000 inhabitants, all Greeks. It is situated in the caza of Koush Adassi, in the vilayet of Aidin or Smyrna, about fifty miles from Smyrna, on the SmjTna-Aldin railway. The ruins of Ephesus stand in the marshy and unhealthy plain below the village. There are the remains of the tem- ple of Diana, the theatre, with a capacity of 25,000 spectators, the stadium, the great gymnasium, and the "Double Church", probably the ancient cathe- dral, one aisle of which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the other to St. John, where the councils of 431 and 449 were held. The Greek metropolitan resides at Manissa, the ancient Magnesia.

Wood, On the Antiquities of Ephesus having relation to Chris' tianity in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaology, VI, 328; Idem, Discoveries at Ephesus (London, 1877); Falkener, Ephesus and the Temple of Diana (London, 1862); Arundell, Discoveries in Asia Minor (London, 1834), II, 247-272; Bah- clay-Head, History of the Coinage of Ephesus (London, 1880): GuHL, Ephesiaca (Berlin. 1843); Curtius, Ephesos (Berlin, 1874); Benndorf, Forschungcn in Ephesos (Vienna, 1905); Chapot, La province Romaine proconsulaire d'Asie (Paris, 1904); CjCde, De ecdesifB epliesinxe statu cevo apostolorum (Paris, 1732); Cruse-Bucher, De statu Ephesiorum ad guos scripsit Paidus (Hanover, 1733); Le Camus in Vig., Diet, de la Bible, s.v. Ephese; Zimmermann, Ephesos im ersten christl. Jhdt. (Berlin. 1894); Lequien. Oriens christianus (Paris, 1740), I, 671-694; Brockhoff, Sludien zur Gesch. der Stadt Ephesos fjena, 1905); Weber, Le guide du voyagcur A Ephese (Smyrna, 1891); Buerchner, Ephesos in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyc, s. V. : R.\ms.vy, The Seven Cities of Asia (London, 1907).

S. Vailhe.

Ephesus, Council of, the third cecumenical coun- cil, 431. The idea of this great council seems to have been due to Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople. St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, had accused him to Pope St. Celestine of heresy, and the pope had replied on 11 August, 430, by charging St. Cyril to assume his authority and give notice in his name to Nestorius that, unless he recanted within ten days of receiving this ultimatum, he was to consider himself excom- municated and deposed. The summons was served on Nestorius on a Sunday, .30 November, or 7 December, by four bishops .sent by Cj'ril. But Nestorius was evi- dently well informed of what he was to expect. He regarded himself as having been calumniated to the po|)e, and he did not choose to be given over into the hands of Cyril. The latter was, in his opinion, not merely a personal enemy, but a dangerous theologian, who was reviving to some extent the errors of .\polli- narius. Nestorius had induence over the Emperor of the East, Theodosius 11, whom he imluced to summon a general council to jutlge of the difference between the