Wood, John T.: Modern discoveries on the site of ancient Ephesus (London, 1890)

THE CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITIES OF EPHESUS. 85

inscription bears interesting testimony to the truth of
the particulars recorded in the Acts, as well as to the
popularity of the worship of Artemis about half-a-century
after St. Paul's departure.

As numerous decrees of the council and the people
were found in the excavations at Ephesus, it is very
probable that a decree was issued after the disturbance
in the theatre, forbidding the preaching of the Gospel
by St. Paul and others ; and this may account for St.
Paul's afterwards passing on to Miletus, without touch-
ing at Ephesus, on the occasion of his next visit to
Jerusalem.

Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, tells us that
St. Luke was born at Antioch in Syria, but he does not
say in what condition of life ; he is described by St. Paul
as Luke the beloved physician ; but this might have been
an appellation bestowed upon him as a distinction for
some knowledge, however slight and superficial, of the
practice of medicine. We first hear of him in the New
Testament* when he joins St. Paul at Troas, and ac-
companies him into Macedonia. St. Luke, who was
the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, suddenly adopts
the use of the first person plural in chapter xvi., the
inference being that he then joined company with St.
Paul at Troas. He thus journeyed as far as Philippi,
and on St. Paul leaving that place, St. Luke resumes
the use of the third person; St. Luke, therefore, might
cither have remained at Philippi, or might have proceeded
to some other place. In chapter xx. 5, we are informed
that St. Luke again joined St. Paul's company at Philippi;

1 Acts xvi. 10.