ON MATTERS OF BELIEF* ^£ 



magnificent temple procured great refpecl: and a lu- 

 crative concourfe of ffcrangers to the city ; they had 

 therefore political and cameraliftical reafons for re- 

 ceiving it as an incontrovertible truth (as the lord 

 chancellor of Ephefus # exprefTes himfelf) not that their 

 Diana was really a goddefs, but, " that the city of 

 Ephefus was the guardian of the great Diana, and of 

 the image that fell down from heaven — With the 

 vulgar, the divinity of their Diana was a plain matter 

 of fact, to whofe worfhip they had been habituated 

 from their infancy ; and it no more entered their heads 

 to form objections againft this belief, than with the 

 populace of Loretto to doubt that their fanta cafa was 

 carried by a group of angels from Nazareth to Loretto. 

 But the goldfmiths had quite another interefl for being 

 confelTors and champions of the divinity of Diana % 

 and they could no more believe in it, than Cicero 

 could in his augurate ; only that, while their fhrines 

 were bought and well paid for, they exclaimed fome- 

 what lefs loudly, Great is Diana of the Ephelians ! 



the fenfe wherein it is ufed lo imply a whole city, it carries with 

 it the idea of patron and guardian. The Ephefians, on all their 

 poins, ftyled themfelves the neokores of Artemis, and were the 

 more proud of this title, as their temple of Diana was, in a man- 

 ner, the common temple of all Afia, which had contributed to 

 jts erection. 



* A&s xix. 3 c;, 36. 



f From this paiTage, which is confirmed by a Greek epigram, 

 quoted by Jofeph Scaliger in his commentary on Eufebii chroni- 

 con, it appears that it was the common belief, that the image of 

 tihe Ephefian Diana had fallen down from heaven. 



Let 



