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A trip to the library in Ephesus

The trek to the ruins of one of the great libraries of the ancient world

was --- and still is --- considered something of a sacred pilgrimage

The library at Ephesus

photos by Susan Little

Ephesus was a great port city of the classical world --- actually even before the rise of the Greco-Roman civilization --- and a place best known in the modern world because of the reference to it in the Bible. The Apostle Paul surely visited the place, but the Epistle to the Ephesians that's one of the books of the New Testament was probably written in Rome, when Paul was held prisoner there.

That relatively brief letter is mostly an appeal for Christian unity among the Jewish and Gentile converts to the early church, but it also has some comments about family values, one of which, about how a wife should obey her husband, is sometimes cited by religious conservatives who would extrapolate it as a mandate for excluding women from leadership roles in the church and in society.

Why an epistle to the Ephesians? Because it was the Roman capital of Asia Minor at the time, and home to the temple of Artemis that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Because it had a large Jewish community and was a hotbed of Christian activity. Apparently because there were some specific issues facing the church there that Paul wanted to address.

The written word made sense for Ephesus. It was a literary center, with a great library of which ruins survive.

Why just ruins? Ephesus fell victim to an environmental calamity and was abandoned in the fifth century AD. Silt from the local river rendered its original great seaport no longer navigable and moreover created swamps that made great breeding grounds for anopheles mosquitoes. People apparently didn't draw the insect vector connection back then --- all they knew was that Ephesus had become a pestilential backwater where it was very easy to die of malaria.

Now, although malaria is still a major scourge in many underdeveloped areas and there is no vaccine or sure cure, people do know how to control the conditions in which malaria thrives and Ephesus is making a comeback --- this time as a tourist attraction. The remnant of its ancient library is one of the main reasons why people come to this place in western Turkey.

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A trip to the library in Ephesus