whom an imperatorial province was entrusted bore the name of proprætor (ἀντιστράτηγος) or legate (πρεσβευτής). Thus the use of the terms "proconsul" and "proprætor" was changed; for, whereas in republican times they signified that the provincial governors bearing them had previously held the offices of consul and prætor respectively at home, they were now employed to distinguish the superior power under which the provinces were administered without regard to the previous rank of the governors administering them. Moreover, the original subdivision of the provinces between the Emperor and Senate underwent constant modifications. If disturbances broke out in a senatorial province and military rule was necessary to restore order, it would be transferred to the Emperor as the head of the army, and the Senate would receive an imperatorial province in exchange. Hence at any given time it would be impossible to say without contemporary, or at least very exact historical knowledge, whether a particular province was governed by a proconsul or a proprætor. The province of Achaia is a familiar illustration of this point. A very few years before St. Paul's visit to Corinth, and some years later, Achaia was governed by a proprætor. Just at this time, however, it was in the hands of the Senate, and its ruler therefore was a proconsul, as represented by St. Luke.

Cyprus is a less familiar, but not less instructive, example of the same accuracy. Older critics, even when writing on the apologetic side, had charged St. Luke with an incorrect use of terms; and the origin of their mistake is a significant comment on the perplexities in which a later forger would find himself entangled in dealing with these official designations. They fell upon a passage in Strabo* where this writer, after mentioning the division of the provinces between the Emperor and the Senate, states that the Senate sent consuls to the two provinces of Asia and Africa but prætors to the rest on their list,―among which he mentions Cyprus; and they jumped at the conclusion-very natural in itself-that the governor of Cyprus would be called a proprætor. Accordingly Baroniof suggested that Cyprus, though a prætorian province, was often handed over honoris causa to be administered by the proconsul of Cilicia, and he assumed therefore that Sergius Paulus held this latter office; while Grotius found a solution in the hypothesis that proconsul was a title bestowed by flatterers on an official whose proper designation was proprætor. The error illustrates the danger of a little learning, not the less dangerous when it is in the hands of really learned men. Asia and Africa, the two great prizes of the profession, exhausted the normal two consuls of the preceding year; and the Senate therefore were obliged to send ex-prætors and other magistrates to govern the remaining provinces under their jurisdiction. But it is now an unquestioned and unquestionable fact that all the provincial governors who

VOL. XXXII.

* xvii. p. 840.

U

+ Sub ann. 46.

represented the Senate in imperial times, whatever magistracy they might have held previously, were styled officially proconsuls.*

The circumstances indeed, so far as regards Cyprus, are distinctly stated by Dion Cassius. At the original distribution of the provinces (B.C. 27) this island had fallen to the Emperor's share; but the historian, while describing the assignment of the several countries in the first instance, adds that the Emperor subsequently gave back Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis to the Senate, himself taking Dalmatia in exchange;† and at a later point, when he arrives at the time in question (B.C. 22), he repeats the information respecting the transfer. "And so," he adds, "proconsuls began to be sent to those nations also." Of the continuance of Cyprus under the jurisdiction of the Senate, about the time to which St. Luke's narrative refers, we have ample evidence. Contemporary records bear testimony to the existence of proconsuls in Cyprus not only before and after, but during the reign of Claudius. The inscriptions mention by name two proconsuls who governed the province in this emperor's time (A.D. 51, 52) ;§ while a third, and perhaps a fourth, are recorded on the coins. At a later date, under Hadrian, we come across a proprætor of Cyprus. The change would probably be owing to the disturbed state of the province consequent on the insurrection of the Jews. But at the close of the same century (A.D. 198)-under Severus-it is again governed by a proconsul;** and this was its normal condition.

Thus the accuracy of St. Luke's designation is abundantly established; but hitherto no record had been found of the particular proconsul mentioned by him. This defect is supplied by one of General Cesnola's inscriptions. It is somewhat mutilated indeed, so that the meaning of parts is doubtful; but for our purpose it is adequate. A date is given as EIII HAYAOY [AN®]YIIATOY, "in the proconsulship of Paulus." On this Cesnola remarks: "The proconsul Paulus may be the Sergius Paulus of the Acts of the Apostles (cap. xiii.), as instances of the suppression of one of two names are not rare."tt An example of the suppression in this very name Sergius Paulus will be given presently, thus justifying the identification of the proconsul of the Acts with the proconsul of this inscription.

Of this Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, Dean Alford says that "nothing more is known." But is it certain that he is not mentioned elsewhere? In the index of contents and authorities which forms the first book of Pliny's "Natural History," this writer twice * See Becker u. Marquardt, Röm. Alterth. III. i. p. 294, seq. escaped the pitfall, for he states that "according to Strabo proprætors," and he therefore supposes that Strabo and Dion De Wette's error stands uncorrected by his editor, Overbeck. + liii. 12. liv. 4.

Even De Wette has not Cyprus was governed by Cassius are at variance.

§ Q. Julius Cordus and L. Annius Bassus in Boeckh, Corp. Inser. Græc. 2631, 2632.

|| Cominius Proclus, and perhaps Quadratus: see Akerman's Numismatic Illustrations of the New Testament, p. 39.

Corp. Inscr. Lat. iii. 6072, an Ephesian inscription discovered by Mr. Wood.

** Corp. Inscr. Lat. iii. 218.

++ Cesnola's Cyprus, p. 425.

names one Sergius Paulus among the Latin authors to whom he was indebted. May not this have been the same person? The name is not common. So far as I have observed, only one other person bearing it*-probably a descendant of this Cyprian proconsul-is mentioned, of whom I shall have something to say hereafter; and he flourished more than a century later. Only one test of identity suggests itself. The Sergius Paulus of Pliny is named as an authority for the second and eighteenth books of that writer. Now on the hypothesis that the proconsul of Cyprus is meant, it would be a natural supposition that like Sir J. Emerson Tennent or Sir Rutherford Alcock, this Sergius Paulus would avail himself of the opportunities afforded by his official residence in the East to tell his Roman fellow-countrymen something about the region in which he had resided. We therefore look with interest to see whether these two books of Pliny contain any notices respecting Cyprus, which might reasonably be explained in this way; and our curiosity is not disappointed. In the second book, besides two other brief notices (cc. 90, 112) relating to the situation of Cyprus, Pliny mentions (c. 97) an area in the temple of Venus at Paphos on which the rain never falls. In the eighteenth book again, besides an incidental mention of this island (c. 57), he gives some curious information (c. 12) with respect to the Cyprian corn, and the bread made therefrom. It should be added that for the second book, in which the references to Cyprus come late, Sergius Paulus is the last-mentioned Latin authority; whereas for the eighteenth, where they are early, he occupies an earlier, though not very early, place in the list. These facts may be taken for what they are worth. In a work, which contains such a multiplicity of details as Pliny's "Natural History," we should not be justified in laying too much stress on coincidences of this kind.

From the Sergius Paulus of Luke the physician we turn to the Sergius Paulus of Galen the physician. Soon after the accession of M. Aurelius (A.D. 161) Galen paid his first visit to Rome, where he stayed for three or four years. Among other persons whom he met there was L. Sergius Paulus, who had been already consul suffectus about A.D. 150, and was hereafter to be consul for the second time in A.D. 168 (on this latter occasion as the regular consul of the year), after which time he held the Prefecture of the City.† He is probably

* Dean Alford indeed (on Acts xiii. 7), following some previous writers, mentions a Sergius Paulus, intermediate in date between the two others—the authority of Pliny and the friend of Galen-whom he describes as "one of the consules suffecti in A.D. 94." This however is a mistake. A certain inscription, mentioning L. Sergius Paullus as consul, is placed by Muratori (p. cccxiv. 3) and others under the year 94; but there is good reason to believe that it refers to the friend of Galen, and must be assigned to the year when he was consul for the first time, as suffectus, i.e. about A.D. 150. See Marini, Atti e Monumenti de' Fratelli Arvali, p. 198; Waddington, Fastes des Provinces Asiatiques, p. 731.

+ This person is twice mentioned by Galen, de Anat. Admin. i. 1 (Op. ii. p. 218, Kühn): τοῦδε τοῦ νῦν ἐπάρχου τῆς Ῥωμαίων πόλεως, ἀνδρὸς τὰ πάντα πρωτεύοντος ἔργοις τε καὶ λόγοις τοῖς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ, Σεργίου Παύλου ὑπάτου: de Prænot. 2 (Op. ii. p. 612), ἀφίκοντο Σέργιός τε ὁ καὶ Παῦλος, ὃς οὐ μετὰ πολὺν χρόνον ὕπαρχος (1. ἔπαρχος) ἐγένετο τῆς πόλεως,

also the same person who is mentioned elsewhere as proconsul of Asia in connection with a Christian martyrdom.* This later Sergius Paulus reproduces many features of his earlier namesake. Both alike are public men; both alike are proconsuls; both alike show an inquisitive and acquisitive disposition. The Sergius Paulus of the Acts, dissatisfied (as we may suppose) alike with the coarse mythology of popular religion and with the lifeless precepts of abstract philosophies, has recourse first to the magic of the sorcerer Elymas, and then to the theology of the Apostles Barnabas and Saul, for satisfaction. The Sergius Paulus of Galen is described as "holding the foremost place in practical life as well as in philosophical studies;" he is especially mentioned as a student of the Aristotelian philosophy; and he takes a very keen interest in medical and anatomical learning. Moreover, if we may trust the reading, there is another striking coincidence between the two accounts. The same expression, "who is

also Paul" (ó kaì IIavλos), is used to describe Saul of Tarsus in the context of the Acts, and L. Sergius in the account of Galen. Not the wildest venture of criticism could so trample on chronology as to maintain that the author of the Acts borrowed from these treatises of Galen; and conversely I have no desire to suggest that Galen borrowed from St. Luke. But if so, the facts are a warning against certain methods of criticism which find favour in this age. To sober critics, the coincidence will merely furnish an additional illustration of the permanence of type which forms so striking a feature in the great Roman families. One other remark is suggested by Galen's notices of his friend. Having introduced him to us as "Sergius who is also Paulus," he drops the former name altogether in the subsequent narrative, and speaks of him again and again as Paulus simply. This illustrates the newly-published Cyprian inscription, in which the proconsul of that province is designated by the one name Paulus only.

2. The transition from General Cesnola's "Cyprus" to Mr. Wood's "Ephesus" carries us forward from the first to the third missionary journey of St. Paul. Here again, we have illustrative matter of some importance. The main feature in the narrative of the Acts is the manner in which the cultus of the Ephesian Artemis dominates the incidents of the Apostle's sojourn in that city. As an illustration of this feature, it would hardly be possible to surpass one of the inscrip

καὶ Φλάβιος, ὑπατικὸς μὲν ὢν ἤδη καὶ αὐτὸς, ἐσπευκὼς δὲ περὶ τὴν ̓Αριστοτέλους φιλοσοφίαν, ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ Παῦλος, οἷς διηγησάμενος κ.τ.λ. In this latter passage the words stand Σέργιος Te Kal & Пavλos in Kühn and other earlier printed editions which I have consulted, but they are quoted Zépyiós тe ó kal Пaûλos by Wetstein and others. I do not know on what authority this latter reading rests, but the change in order is absolutely necessary for the sense; for (1.) In this passage nothing more is said about Sergius as distinct from Paulus, whereas Paulus is again and again mentioned, so that plainly one person alone is intended. (2.) In the parallel passage Sergius Paulus is mentioned, and the same description is given of him as of Paulus here. The alternative would be to omit kal & altogether, as the passage is tacitly quoted in Borghesi, Œuvres, viii. p. 504.

* Melito in Euseb. H.E. iv. 26: see Waddington, Fastes des Provinces Asiatiques, p. 731.

tions in the existing collection.* We seem to be reading a running commentary on the excited appeal of Demetrius the silversmith, when we are informed that "not only in this city but everywhere temples are dedicated to the goddess, and statues erected and altars consecrated to her, on account of the manifest epiphanies which she vouchsafes ” (τὰς ὑπ ̓ αὐτῆς γεινομένας ἐναργεῖς ἐπιφανείας); that “ the greatest proof of the reverence paid to her is the fact that a month bears her name, being called Artemision among ourselves, and Artemisius among the Macedonians and the other nations of Greece and their respective cities;" that during this month "solemn assemblies and religious festivals are held, and more especially in this our city, which is the nurse of its own Ephesian goddess” (τῇ τροφῷ τῆς ἰδίας θεοῦ τῆς Ἐφεσίας); and that therefore "the people of the Ephesians, considering it meet that the whole of this month which bears the divine name (Tòν éπúvμov Toû beίov óvóμatos) should be kept holy, and dedicated to the goddess," has decreed accordingly. "For so," concludes this remarkable document, "the cultus being set on a better footing, our city will continue to grow in glory and to be prosperous to all time." The sense of special proprietorship in this goddess of world-wide fame, which pervades the narrative in the Acts, could not be better illustrated than by this decree. But still the newly-published inscriptions greatly enhance the effect. The patron deity not only appears in these as "the great goddess Artemis," as in the Acts, but sometimes she is styled "the supremely great goddess (peyίorn beós) Artemis." To her favour all men are indebted for all their choicest possessions. She has not only her priestesses, but her temple-curators, her essenes, her divines (coloyo), her choristers (uvodoí), her vergers (σKηTTоUɣα), her tirewomen or dressers (κoσμreîpai), and even her "acrobats," whatever may be meant by some of these terms. Fines are allocated to provide adornments for her; endowments are given for the cleaning and custody of her images; decrees are issued for the public exhibition of her treasures. Her birthday is again and again mentioned. She is seen and heard everywhere. She is hardly more at home in her own sanctuary than in the Great Theatre. This last-mentioned place-the scene of the tumult in the Acts-is brought vividly before our eyes in Mr. Wood's inscriptions. The theatre appears as the recognized place of public assembly. Here edicts are proclaimed, and decrees recorded, and benefactors crowned. When the mob, under the leadership of Demetrius, gathered here for their demonstration against St. Paul and his companions, they would find themselves surrounded by memorials which might stimulate their zeal for the goddess. If the "townclerk" had desired to make good his assertion, "What man is there that knoweth not that the city of the Ephesians is sacristan of the

Boeckh, Corp. Inser. Græc. 2954. The first sentence which I have quoted is slightly mutilated; but the sense is clear. The document bears only too close a resemblance to the utterances of Lourdes in our own day.