He told them that the men against whom they were raising this disturbance had neither robbed their temples nor blasphemed the goddess; so that if Demetrius and his fellow-craft had anything justly against these men, as having injured their business, they had their proper remedy at law. He hinted to them also that they were all liable to be called to account for this manifest breach of Roman law, and this defiance of the majesty of the Roman government;—a hint which brought most of them to their senses; for all who had anything to lose, dreaded the thought of giving occasion to the awfully remorseless government of the province, to fine them, as they certainly would be glad to do on any valid excuse. They all dispersed, therefore, with no more words.
"'Silver shrines,' ver. 24. The heathens used to carry the images of their gods in
procession from one city to another. This was done in a chariot which was solemnly
consecrated for that employment, and by the Romans styled Thensa, that is, the chariot of their gods. But besides this, it was placed in a box or shrine, called Ferculum.
Accordingly, when the Romans conferred divine honors on their great men,
alive or dead, they had the Circen games, and in them the Thensa and Ferculum,
the chariot and the shrine, bestowed on them; as it is related of Julius Caesar.
This Ferculum among the Romans did not differ much from the Graecian [Greek: Naos], a little chapel, representing the form of a temple, with an image in it, which, being set
upon an altar, or any other solemn place, having the doors opened, the image was
seen by the spectators either in a standing or sitting posture. An old anonymous
scholiast upon Aristotle's Rhetoric, lib. i. c. 15, has these words: [Greek: Naopoioi hoi tous naois
poiousi, êtoi eikonostasia, tina mikra xolina a pôlousi], observing the [Greek: naoi] here to be [Greek: eikonostasia],
chaplets, with images in them, of wood, or metal, (as here of silver,) which they
made and sold, as in v. 25, they are supposed to do. Athenaeus speaks of the [Greek: kadiskos],
'which,' says he 'is a vessel wherein they place their images of Jupiter.' The
learned Casaubon states, that 'these images were put in cases, which were made like
chapels. (Deipnos. lib. ii. p. 500.) So St. Chrysostom likens them to 'little cases, or
shrines.' Dion says of the Roman ensign, that it was a little temple, and in it a golden
eagle, ([Greek: Rômaik], lib. 40.) And in another place: 'There was a little chapel of
Juno, set upon a table. Ib. lib. 39. This is the meaning of the tabernacle of Moloch,
Acts vii. 43, where by the [Greek: skênê], tabernacle, is meant the chaplet, a shrine of that false
god. The same was also the (
Hebrew characters) the tabernacle of Benoth, or Venus." Hammond's
Annot. [Williams on Pearson, p. 55.]
Robbers of temples.—Think of the miserable absurdity of the common English translation in this passage, (Acts xix. 37,) where the original [Greek: hisposyloi] is expressed by "robbers of churches!" Now who ever thought of applying the English word "church," to anything whatever but a "Christian assembly," or "Christian place of assembly?" Why then is this phrase put in the mouth of a heathen officer addressing a heathen assembly about persons charged with violating the sanctity of heathen places of worship? Such a building as a church, ([Greek: ekklêsia], ecclesia) devoted to the worship of the true God, was not known till more than a century after this time; and the Greek word [Greek: hieron], (hieron,) which enters into the composition of the word in the sacred text, thus mistranslated, was never applied to a Christian place of worship.
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.
Paul's residence in Ephesus is distinguished in his literary history, as the period in which he wrote that most eloquent and animated of his epistles,—"the first to the Corinthians." It was written towards the close of his stay in Asia, about the time of the passover; according to established calculations, therefore, in
