Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
ye see and hear—The evidences of it were to be seen, and the report of it was in everybody's mouth.
that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath . . . turned away much people—Noble testimony this to the extent of Paul's influence!
saying that they be no gods which are made with hands—The universal belief of the people was that they were gods, though the more intelligent regarded them only as habitations of Deity, and some, probably, as mere aids to devotion. It is exactly so in the Church of Rome.
silver shrines for—"of"
Diana—small models of the Ephesian temple and of the shrine or chapel of the goddess, or of the shrine and statue alone, which were purchased by visitors as memorials of what they had seen, and were carried about and deposited in houses as a charm. (The models of the chapel of our Lady of Loretto, and such like, which the Church of Rome systematically encourages, are such a palpable imitation of this heathen practice that it is no wonder it should be regarded by impartial judges as Christianity paganized).
gain to the craftsmen—the master-artificers.
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