Capital of Ionia, Asia Minor, and later, under the Romans, capital of Asia Proconsularis. Many Jews lived in this large Greek city during the whole of the Hellenistic period. Josephus ("Contra Ap." ii. 4) traces the granting of citizenship to the Jews of Ephesus and of entire Ionia back to the Diadochi; but as the Greeks themselves, in their dispute with the Jews, ascribed the regulation of their affairs (idem, "Ant." xii. 3, § 2) to Antiochus II. Theos (261-246
Paul preached Christianity in the synagogue of Ephesus during his first visit to that city (Acts xviii. 19); Apollos, a learned Jew from Alexandria, assisted by Priscilla and Aquila, proclaimed it in the same place (ib. xviii. 26). Paul, on his second visit, again preached in the synagogue; but when some Jews rejected his teaching, he went to preach in the private synagogue of a certain Tyrannus (ib. xix. 9).
The Jews of Ephesus were completely Hellenized, and the inscriptions on the Jewish tombs found there are written in Greek: one stone commemorates a certain "Mar Maussios," i.e., Rabbi Moses; another, a leading physician. Josephus often cites a certain Menander of Ephesus, whose history seems to have included that of the Jews. The city was the scene of the dialogue which Justin held with the Jew Tryphon (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," iv. 18).
Ephesus is mentioned in the rabbinical writings in Targ. to I Chron. i. 5 and Yer. Meg. 71b. The Rabbis, when referring to Asia, always mean simply Ephesus. The charming tale of the widow of Ephesus, which was known as early as the Talmud (Ḳid. 80b), is treated several times in Jewish works (Steinschneider, "Hebr. Uebers." p. 969). The so-called Ephesian script, used on amulets, seems to have been employed by the Jews also (Löw, "Gesammelte Schriften," ii. 80). The legend of the Seven Sleepers, connected with Ephesus, which has also been adopted by the Koran, is an episode in the Jewish accounts of the life of Jesus (Krauss, "Leben Jesu nach Jüdischen Quellen," p. 198).
- Grätz, Gesch. 4th ed., iii. 174, 186, 228;
- Schürer, Gesch. 3d ed., iii. 12, 81;
- Krauss, Lehnwörter, ii. 14;
- Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, iii. 2, Nos. 676, 677.