MOTHER-GODDESS worship was still practiced during the days of the early Christians. The apostle Paul met up with it in Ephesus in Asia Minor. As in Athens, another goddess-worshiping city, he had borne witness to “the God that made the world,” the living Creator, who is not “like gold or silver or stone, like something sculptured by the art and contrivance of man.” This was too much for the Ephesians, most of whom worshiped the mother-goddess Artemis. Those who made a living by fashioning silver shrines of the goddess incited a riot. For about two hours, the crowd shouted: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”​—Acts 17:24, 29; 19:26, 34.

The Ephesian Artemis

The Greeks also worshiped an Artemis, but the Artemis worshiped in Ephesus can only be loosely identified with her. The Greek Artemis was a virgin goddess of hunting and childbirth. The Ephesian Artemis was a fertility goddess. Her huge temple at Ephesus was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Her statue, thought to have fallen from heaven, represented her as a personification of fertility, her chest being covered with rows of egg-shaped breasts. The peculiar shape of these breasts has given rise to various explanations, such as that they represent garlands of eggs or even bulls’ testicles. Whatever the explanation, the symbol of fertility is clear.

Interestingly, according to The New Encyclopædia Britannica, the original statue of this goddess “was made of gold, ebony, silver, and black stone.” A well-known statue of the Ephesian Artemis, dating from the second century C.E., shows her with black face, hands, and feet.

The image of Artemis was paraded through the streets. Bible scholar R. B. Rackham writes: “Within the temple [of Artemis were] stored her . . . images, shrines, and sacred utensils, of gold and silver, which on great festivals were carried to the city and back in a magnificent procession.” These festivals attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all Asia Minor. They purchased small shrines of the goddess and hailed her as great, their lady, the queen, the virgin, “one who listens to and accepts prayers.” In such surroundings, it took great courage for Paul and the early Christians to extol “the God that made the world,” rather than gods and goddesses made of “gold or silver or stone.”

From Mother-Goddess to “Mother of God”

It was to the elders of the Christian congregation of Ephesus that the apostle Paul foretold an apostasy. He warned that apostates would rise up and speak “twisted things.” (Acts 20:17, 28-30) Among the ever-lurking dangers in Ephesus was a return to mother-goddess worship.

The hundreds of statues and icons of the Black Madonna in Catholic churches throughout the world cannot fail to evoke the statue of Artemis. The work Théo​—Nouvelle encyclopédie catholique says of these Black Virgins: “They appear to have been a means for transferring to Mary what remained of popular devotion to Diana [Artemis] . . . or Cybele.” The Assumption Day processions of the Virgin Mary also find their prototype in the processions in honor of Cybele and Artemis.

[Picture on page 6]

ARTEMIS​—Fertility goddess of Ephesus

[Credit Line]

Musei dei Conservatori, Rome