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* EPHESIANS. 137 EPHESUS. quaintanee of the Apostle with the readers, seem- ingly excluding the specific locality of Epheaus given in the received text. (2) A striking re- semblance in word and phrase to Colossians, leading to the inference of a contemporaneous date with this epistle. (3) An evident imprison merit on the part of the Apostle (iii. 1), and an imprisonment which, in its freedom to preach and its opportunity for service (vi. 18-20), shows resemblance to the lenient conditions of his Roman imprisonment, narrated in Acts and re- ferred to in the Captivity Epistles. (4) A theme (the ideal unity of the Church in Jesus Christ supreme) which appears to be a most natural development of the theme of Colossians (the exaltation of Jesus Christ as supreme), and a not unlikely outcome of the dominant thought of the Epistle to the Romans (the community between the Jewish and Gentile elements in the Church). These facts agree quite significantly with the epistle's claim, and render the assertion of its in- consistency with itself difficult of proof. Con- firmation of these facts is further rendered by the strong witness borne to the epistle as a prod- uct of the Apostle by external evidence from the time of Marcion (a.d. 140) down. Over against all this there would not seem to be much force in the contention that the large element of catholicity in the epistle would indi- cate a post- Apostolic date, since the catholicity which the epistle presents becomes simply a con- sistent development of Paul's own ideas, reaching its climax in this encyclical message to the churches of this region so associated with his three years' Ephesian work. It would be, there- fore, of still less force to call attention to the peculiarities of word and phrase and general style in the epistle; especially as these peculiarities find to a large extent their counterpart in the companion Epistle to the Colossians, which is admitted to be Paul's. Accepting then the Pauline origin of the epistle, it becomes a most interesting question how the title 'Ephesians' came to be attached to it, in particular how 'at Ephesus' came to be incor- porated in the address ( i. 1 ), there being no local Ephesian color in the epistle and no salu- tations in it to members of the Ephesian Church. The significance of this question is heightened by the fact that the documentary evidence is scarcely in favor of the phrase being part of the original text. The early and more important manuscripts omit it, while not a few of the early fathers show they did not read it in their copies of the letter. On the other hand, the assigning of this epistle to Ephesus is continuous and universal in the Church from the time of Irenanis (a.d. 180). How came this tradition if 'at Ephesus' has failed from the text since the beginning? The answer to this question would seem to rest between two theories. The one would assume that Paul wrote the letter to a group of churches with which he was not personally acquainted, situated outside of Ephesus, the association of the epistle with this city coming from the natural drift of the original manuscript to this metropolitan centre and its preservation there (Zahn), the name of the less known church which it must have contained be- ing finally removed for that of the larger one (Jiilicher). The other theory would assume that Paul wrote the letter to a group of churches of which Ephesus was the leading one. but all local references to which were laid aside because of the general character of the letter (A. Robert- son), phrases being substituted which would agree with the fact that with the larger number of the group he was personally unacquainted, in this case the original manuscript would have had 'at Ephesus' in the text, since the letter went in the first instance to the parent church; but from I lie copy made for the other churches it would be omitted, Tychicus supplying the name of the locality as he brought the letter to it, coming finally to Laodicea, the last city of the circuit where his copy was left. This would explain Marcion's finding of our epistle there without 'at Ephesus' in the text and also the reference in Colossians (Col. iv. 16, "When this epistle hath been read among you cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, ami that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea") to the letter which that church was to receive from Laodicea, which was the natural head of this Lycus valley group. Bibliography. Commentaries: Beck (Giiters- loh, 1891); Klopper (Gbttingen, 1891); Oltra- mare, Commentaire sur les epitres de Saint Paul a Colossiens, Eph4siens et a Philippiens (Geneva, 1891-92); Maepherson (Edinburgh, 1892) ; Von Soden, in Hand-Kommentar zwm m »- en Testament (Freiburg, 1893); Wohlenberg, in Strack und Zockler, Kommentar (Munich, 1895) ; Haupt, in Meyer, Kommentar ( 6th ed., Gottingen, 1897): Abbott, in International Critical Com- mentary (New York, 1897). Introductions: Holtzmann (3d ed., Freiburg, 1892) ; Godet. Eng- lish trans. (Edinburgh, 1894) ; Salmon (7th ed., London, 1894) ; Jiilicher (Leipzig, 1901) ; Weiss, English trans. (London, 1888) ; Zahn (7th ed., Leipzig, 1900) ; Bacon (New York, 1900) ; Mof- fatt, The Historical New Testament (New York, 1900). Discussions: Baur, Paulus, English trans. (London, 1873-75) ; Holtzmann, Kritik der Ephe- ser und Kolosserbriefe (Leipzig, 1872) ; Hort, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians (London, 1895) ; Lightfoot, "Destination of Epistle to Ephesians," in Biblical Essays (London, 1893). EPH/ESTJS (Lat. from Gk. "Eeaos, Ephesos) . One of the twelve Ionic cities of Asia Minor. It was situated in Lydia, near the mouth of the river Cayster, in the midst of an alluvial plain. Its origin is enveloped in myths, as in the case of all the Ionic cities; but the reputed founder was Androcles, son of Codrus, the last King of Athens. The population was by no means all Ionic, as appears from the fact that the Ephesians did not celebrate the great Ionic festival of the Apaturia, nor were they divided into the four Ionic tribes. The presence of the great temple of Artemis (see Diana, Temple of) seems to have made it a sacred place from an early time, and its situation at the starting-point of one of the great trade routes into the interior of Asia Minor led to its commercial prosperity. It suffered from the Cimmerian invasion, about B.C. 655, and early submitted to the Lydian kings. During the Gra?co-Persian wars we hear little of the city, and it played no prominent part during the Pelopomiesian and later wars. After the time of Alexander the Great the prosperity of Ephesus seems to have greatly increased. The city was strengthened and improved by Lysimachus and the kings of Pergamum. The Romans made it the capital of the Province of Asia. Under the em- perors it was the most prosperous trading city in