^4 LIBERTY OF REASONING 



all about, they fet up a cry which lafted for a couple 

 of hours, Great is Diana of the Ephelians : till at laft 

 the town-clerk, or the chancellor, by a very fenlible 

 fpeech, worthy of a lord high chancellor of England, 

 appeafed the people, and fent them to their homes. 



I know of no better example than this for eluci- 

 dating what I advanced above. The wooden Diana 

 of the Ephelians either was a goddefs, or was not a 

 goddefs, juft as the Ephelians chofe to have it. And 

 why fo ? Becaufe, ferioully fpeaking, it was in rea- 

 lity nothing better nor worfe than a wooden image of a 

 little hideous large-breafted gypfey, and therefore no 

 goddefs. Yet, fo long as they held it to be fo, in 

 certain refpects it was juft as if it actually were fo. 

 Xet us be reafonable — The Aliarchs, the head men 

 of the city of Ephefus, the chancellor and the reft of 

 them, doubtlefs knew as well as we the true ftate of 

 the affair : in the mean time the Ephelians, for a long 

 fucceffion of time had accounted it a great honour to 

 Jbe called the neocori * of the great Diana, and her 



mag- 



* The word neokoros originally iignified, with the Greeks, 

 the perfon that looked after the temple, opened and flint the 

 doors, andfaw that every part of it was kept clean, &c. in ihort, 

 the officer we at prefent call the fexton. In procefs of time, 

 every city of note made it an honour to call themfelves the neo- 

 Icori or fextons of their guardian divinity to whom they had built 

 a temple within their walls ; and, under the Roman caefars, they 

 contended with one another for the honour of being neokrates to 

 the emperors to whom, even during their lifetime, a fort of di- 

 vine honours were paid in the provinces. Luther and Beza tranflate 

 this word, Acts xix. 35. very fitly by the term warden ; fince, in 



the 



