theories. They regarded the present degraded state in which man is found, and the evil passions to which he is subject, as arising from the connexion of the spirit with matter-they looked forward to its removal from the obnoxious vehicle as the commencement of a bright and sunny existence; and therefore the notion of its again returning to inhabit a material organization was likely to excite their opposition and contempt. Pliny classes the resurrection among the impossible things which even God cannot accomplish- revocare defunctos-to call back the dead to life. Celsus calls it the hope of worms, a very filthy and abominable as well as impossible thing; it is that which God neither can nor will do, being base, and contrary to nature.' The Athenians heard St Paul patiently until he touched upon this topic, when they began to ridicule the man who could entertain and advocate the supposition. This objection of ancient philosophy the Apostle meets and refutes in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, by stating the difference that will exist between the qualities of the body that dies, and the body that is raised: It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory,' &c. To meet the views of the philosophers, and remove their prejudices, the exposition of the doctrine alluded to was first promulgated; and hence many of the founders of succeeding heresies availed themselves of it to increase their adherents, and to strengthen their cause."

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The Epistles to Timothy are very valuable. They may be regarded as two Charges of the utmost importance, and throw very considerable light on the history and state of the Church in the apostolic times. These Epistles also throw considerable light on the Ephesian Church at that period, and introduce to our notice some of its most zealous and distinguished members. It appears that the believers, with few exceptions, resisted the seductions of the heretical innovators; but Timothy at this important crisis needed all the wise and animating

counsels of St Paul, to oppose the errors and baffle the designs of his adversaries. Onesiphorus is expressly mentioned, and an affecting memorial of his services and those of his family is introduced in the Second Epistle, 2 Tim. i. 16, 17, 18; iv. 19. If we adopt the Bible chronology as correct, which dates the writing of the Second Epistle in A.D. 66, it appears that Timothy, at the Apostle's request, went to Rome to attend him in his last hours, and to receive his dying injunctions. "Do thy diligence," writes the illustrious martyr from his dungeon in Rome, "to come before the winter." There is no memorial of the date of his return, or of the state of the Ephesian Church during his absence. About A.D. 68, the Church of Asia Minor received considerable accessions, the Christians residing in Judea rapidly quitting the country when they perceived the storm impending which subverted the polity of the Jews; and the Church of Jerusalem was dissolved. It is conjectured that St John came to Ephesus at that period, and undertook the government of the Churches of Asia Minor, St Paul having fallen at Rome before the axe of Nero. "That the Evangelist," observes Milner, "did not come into Asia during the life of St Paul, appears certain from the omission of his name in the Epistles of the latter; for had he been at Ephesus, or in its neighbourhood, when the letters to Timothy and the other Churches were written, some salutation would undoubtedly have been sent. The dispersion of the Apostles is placed by Origen in the first year of the Jewish war, and St Thomas, it is said, though without certain evidence, then went unto Parthia, St Andrew into Syria, St Peter into Italy, and St John into the Lesser Asia."

Such is a brief outline of the state of the Ephesian Church previous to the Apocalyptic epistle, which the reader will find more amply detailed under the article EPHESUS. We now proceed to the date of the Apocalyptic epistles to the Seven Churches, which, according to the Bible chronology, was in A.D. 96. St John, it

is well known, was in exile at Patmos. Sulpitius Severus says, that " during the reign of Domitian (about A.D. 95), John, the apostle and evangelist, was banished to the Isle of Patmos, where, after hidden mysteries had been revealed to him, he wrote and published his book of the sacred Apocalypse, which is wickedly and foolishly rejected by many." This date, which is now generally admitted to be the correct one, is opposed by Sir Isaac Newton, who places the exile of St John under the reign of Nero, while Grotius advocates the reign of Claudius. It certainly appears from the title of the Syriac version of the Apocalypse, that the Syrian churches ascribed it to the reign of Nero:—“ The Revelation which was made by God to John the Evangelist in the Island of Patmos, into which he was thrown by Nero Cæsar." But Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was the friend and disciple of St John, and appointed by the Apostle to the superintendence of the Church of Smyrna, of which he was the fifth bishop, had the best opportunities of obtaining accurate information. Speaking of the mystical numbers 666 ascribed to Antichrist, in his fifth book against Heresies (Iren. adver. Hæres.), he observes, respecting its difficult interpretation, "But if it had been proper that this name should be openly proclaimed in this present time, it would have been told even by him who saw the Apocalypse, for it was not seen a long time ago, but almost in our own age, towards the end of Domitian's reign." Tertullian relates, that when the Apostle was first imprisoned by the Roman magistracy at Ephesus, he was sent to Rome, where he was thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, but being miraculously preserved, he was banished to the barren and dreary Isle of Patmos by the disappointed tyrant. Whether this tradition be true or not, certain it is that, although St John was the only Apostle who escaped a violent death, he felt his exile to be a most severe deprivation, and nothing can be more affecting than the simple declaration he makes in the

outset of the Apocalyptic Epistles to the Seven Churches:-" I John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation."

The divine mandate is given-" Unto the angel of the Church of Ephesus write." Who was the angel or bishop of Ephesus in A. D. 96? "The opinion," says Milner, " that Timothy was the angel of the Church' at this period, is supported by many names of considerable authority, though it must be confessed to be extremely doubtful. An ecclesiastical tradition places his death in the year 97, and represents his being martyred near the temple of Diana during a Pagan festival, being slain with clubs and stones whilst preaching against idolatry. If any credit is to be attached to this story, it is in the highest degree probable that Timothy was the presiding minister through whom the church was addressed. On the other hand it is argued, that the relation is very uncertain, and that it is not likely that one so highly commended by St Paul should receive so severe a censure as is here dictated. But this last objection is at once removed by the consideration, that the angels or presidents are not addressed personally, and that their particular state is not described, but the communities committed to their care." The conjecture of this writer, however, has every evidence of probability, for it appears from a list of seventy bishops of Ephesus quoted by Mr Arundell from the "Oriens Christianus," published in 1721, that Timothy, the first bishop, was succeeded by St John himself at his return from Patmos to Ephesus, after an exile of fifteen years, according to the author of the "Chronicon Paschale," and five years according to Irenæus; but if, as it is generally supposed, the Apostle returned to Ephesus after the death of the Emperor Domitian, which took place in September A. D. 96, the period of his exile was much less. St John died at an extreme old age in the third year of the reign of the Emperor Trajan, and was succeeded by Onesimus, who is mentioned as being

bishop of the Ephesian Church in one of the Epistles of Ignatius, A. D. 107, written during his journey to Rome.

Viewing Timothy, therefore, as "the angel of the Church of Ephesus," the Ephesian Christians, through him as their representative and governor, are commended for their works, their labour, their patience, and perseverance in the truth. They had not " fainted" in the cause of Christ; they had "tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and found them liars;" and their hatred of the "deeds of the Nicolaitanes” is mentioned in terms of special approval. It is thus evident that heresy had made little impression on the Ephesian Church, and that it was still as sound in matters of faith and discipline as it was when St Paul wrote his Epistle. Yet the Ephesians had relaxed; they are charged with having left their "first love," the fervour of their piety had abated, and their religious impressions weakened. An exhortation is in consequence given to repent, with a solemn warning of punishment in case of disobedience. "Remember-repent-do thy first works," is the command, otherwise, says the Divine Inspector, "I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place." This Apocalyptic Epistle to the Ephesians is peculiarly affecting. "It appears," says a writer, "from this divine communication, that though the state of the Ephesians might be completely satisfactory to a superficial observer, yet the great Head of the Church had discovered symptoms of decline. Pure in practice, correct in discipline, and christian in sentiment as she was, one of the brightest features in her character was beginning to be defaced-her love was on the wane. The pointed charge, the admonition, and the tremendous threatening, had, however, the desired effect; and from the testimony of Ignatius, we may gather that the church was roused from her lethargy, and excited to holy diligence by the divine rebuke. But a subsequent era will bring us to contemplate an increased and strongly marked

degeneracy and corruption, when Ephesus was deprived of both candlestick and angel when he who once walked in the midst of her with delight, came to execute his long-issued threat, and create amid Mahometan superstition and tyranny a famine of the word."

In the sixth century of the Christian era the ecclesiastical history of Ephesus may be said to terminate. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Tamerlane encamped with his Tartars on its plains; the apostacy of past ages was now to be visited with full retribution; the ruined structures and marble materials of ancient Ephesus were taken to rear the modern town of Aiasaluk, and the once magnificent city, the metropolis of Proconsular Asia, has been abandoned to the owl and the jackal. "This place," says Sir Paul Rycaut, "where once Christianity so flourished as to be a mother church, and the see of a metropolitan bishop, cannot now show one family of Christians; so hath the secret providence of God disposed of affairs too deep and mysterious for us to search into." "I was in Ephesus," says Mr Arundell, "in January 1824; the desolation was then complete; a Turk, whose shed we occupied, his Arab servant, and a single Greek, composed the entire population, some Turcomans excepted, whose black tents were pitched among the ruins. What would have been the astonishment and grief of the beloved Apostle and Timothy, if they could have foreseen that a time would come when there would be in Ephesus neither angel, nor church, nor city-when the great city would become heaps, desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness—a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby! Once it had an idolatrous temple celebrated for its magnificence as one of the wonders of the world, and the mountains of Corissus and Prion re-echoed the shouts of ten thousand tongues, sians!'

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Great is Diana of the EpheOnce it had Christian temples, almost rivalling the Pagan in splendour, wherein the image that fell from Jupiter

lay prostrate before the Cross, and as many tongues, moved by the Holy Ghost, made public avowal that 'Great is the Lord Jesus!' Once it had a bishop, the angel of the church, Timothy, and the beloved disciple St John; and tradition reports that it was honoured with the last days of both those great men, and of the mother of our Lord. Some centuries passed on, and the altars of Jesus were again thrown down to make way for the delusions of Mahomet; the Cross is removed from the dome of the church, and the Crescent glitters in its stead, while within the keblé is substituted for the altar. A few years more, and all may be silence in the mosque and in the church! A few unintelligible heaps of stones, with some mud cottages untenanted, are all the remains of the great city of the Ephesians. The busy hum of a mighty population is silent in death. Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandize, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy caulkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandize, and all thy men of war, are fallen! Even the sea hath retired from the scene of desolation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up the ships laden with merchandize from every country." EPHESUS.

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2. SMYRNA. Following the Apostle's arrangement of the Apocalyptic Epistles, we now proceed to Smyrna, forty miles (forty-five according to Bishop Newton) distant from ruined and fallen Ephesus, to which it is the nearest of the other cities. Ancient Smyrna was a magnificent city, celebrated in poetry and in song as "Izmer the lovely" (Izmer being a Turkish corruption of sis Thy Zugrav), "the ornament of Asia," and "the crown of Ionia ;" and of the city it may be observed generally, that it has survived the repeated attacks of earthquakes, conflagrations, pestilence, and war. While the other cities of the Seven Churches are either in ruins like Ephesus, or exist in a state of the most deplorable and melancholy degradation, Smyrna alone flourishes. Her temples and public edifices

have indeed disappeared, but her opulence, extent, and population, have increased. Smyrna was almost destroyed by an earthquake about A.D. 177, and Marcus Aurelius rebuilt it with much splendour and beauty. Mr Arundell estimates its present population at 130,000, and the number of houses between ten and fifteen thousand. Smyrna is situated at the southeast end of a bay of the Mediterranean bearing the name of the city, which is capable of containing the largest navy in the world, and is the greatest commercial sea-port in the Turkish Asiatic dominions. The inland country in its neighbourhood is described as being extremely beautiful at certain periods of the year; the hyacinth, anemonie, and ranunculus, bloom even on the road sides, and colour the fields with their matchless tints; "while the boats that descend the Hermus in the season laden with the fruits of Asia for the Levant markets, remind the traveller of a sister country, a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and fig trees.""

The road from Ephesus to Smyrna, after crossing the Cayster, passes over a mountainous ridge called Tmolus, at the base of which, under Mount Corax, lies Sedikeuy, a few miles from Smyrna—a village containing about three hundred Greek houses, forty Turkish, a Greek church, and a mosque. We may readily conceive the immense intercourse which must have taken place between this city and Ephesus, when the latter was in its glory, and viewed Smyrna as its mighty rival. There is no positive information by what means, or through whose agency, the gospel was introduced into Smyrna, but it is more than probable, from its great celebrity, and its proximity to Ephesus, that it became in very early times the scene of Apostolic labour. Ecclesiastical history ascribes the formation of the church of Smyrna to St John, and it certainly was under his jurisdiction; but as the whole eastern coast of the

gean Sea was navigated by St Paul, and as his course from Mitylene to Miletus lay by the entrance of the Gulf of Smyrna, it is not improbable that the great

Apostle of the Gentiles first proclaimed to the citizens the doctrines of Christianity.

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"Unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write." It is alleged by Archbishop Usher and others, that the venerable martyr St Polycarp was the "angel" of the church of Smyrna when St John was in Patmos. There is strong presumptive evidence that such was the fact from the tenor of the Apocalyptic epistle addressed to him; for the prophetic intimation of trouble and persecution is in close agreement with his history; and as he encountered the horrors of martyrdom, there is something significant in the exhortation to be "faithful unto death," and in the promise of a crown of life." There appear to have been four "angels" of the church of Smyrna previous to St Polycarp, namely, Aristo I., Stratæus, Aristo II., and Bucolus. It is certain that Polycarp at the time of his martyrdom had been bishop of Smyrna many years. The only objection urged against the supposition that Polycarp was the "angel" addressed in the Apocalypse, is that of his extreme youth at the time of the exile of St John; but from his own statement of his age at the period of his martyrdom, A.D. 167, the exact date of which is variously stated, some making it A.D. 169, he had been for "eighty and six years a servant of Christ," and supposing him to have been fourteen years of age when he was converted, this fixes his birth in A. D. 67, and makes him nearly thirty years old at the era of the Apocalypse. We may therefore safely conclude, that this most venerable saint and holy martyr, the intimate friend of St John, was the "angel of the church in Smyrna" at that period.

The Epistle to the church in Smyrna is the shortest and least reprehensible of all the Seven Apocalyptic Epistles. The Smyrnaen believers are commended for their "works and tribulation," and though poor in worldly circumstances, they are declared to be "rich" in the attainments and blessings of religion. No heresy

appears to have infected them; they had not forgotten their "first love" like the Ephesians, and become callous and indifferent. The peace and happiness of the Smyrnaen church are strikingly contrasted by their Divine Master with the "blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan." These were professed Jews, men of violent and profligate character, who were endeavouring to excite the persecution which is foretold in the tenth verse. "The curse of judicial blindness," says Milner, " clung to this fated people in every scene of their dispersion; the 'vail was upon their hearts' in Smyrna, as in the country which, for its guiltiness, had been given to the Gentile; and at the death of Polycarp we find the descendants of Abraham the active executioners of heathen cruelty, collecting fuel to light up the flames of martyrdom."

But the " angel" of the church in Smyrna is told to "fear none of those things which he shall suffer;" persecution is distinctly announced, and how amply that was verified the annals of Smyrna too faithfully attest. The most remarkable feature in this Apocalyptic Epistle is the prophetic declaration, "ye shall have tribulation ten days," and "the devil" casting some of them "into prison."

This passage has given rise to various explanations, resulting from the uncertainty whether it is to be understood figuratively or literally. In prophetic language ten days of tribulation denote ten years, which is about the period of the persecution which the churches of Asia suffered under Dioclesian. "The period," says Dr Woodhouse, "may either be literally ten days, or typically ten years, a day often representing a year, according to the known language of prophecy. We have so little knowledge of the history of the church in the times here spoken of, that there is great difficulty in ascertaining the persecution here alluded to, and the time of its duration. We have an account of a persecution suffered by the church of Smyrna in the year 169, when, among