Date of Award

1-1-1958

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Frank J. Albert

Abstract

This dissertation is an atrcempt to reconstruct and to recapture a period in the history of this famous city, a center so important in New Testament times and in the first two centuries or the Christian Church, but a metropolis which centuries ago became buried in the silt of a river. The site and a primitive kind of settlement began in pre-historic times. We will briefly trace the story of its ancestory; its youth; its changes; traditions; then its glory between the years 133 B.C. to A.D. 262; its contribution to culture; its spirit; its contact with Christianity; its period as a Christian center; the invasion of the Goths; the inroad of Islam; its disappearance; and its partial excavation in the nineteenth century. It is the period of its glory, 133 B.C. to A.D. 262, that is the theme of this dissertation. This was the period when the religion of Artemis was at its height and her temple at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This period includes the era when Christianity appeared in Ephesus and gained a foothold. Here at Ephesus the Christian writing was formed into a body of literature and published, and the Christian tradition became a pattern of Apostolic tradition. It was in these two Christian centuries that the episc~pal form of church government and organization made its appearance.

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