Theatre (Hastings' Dictionary)

At the disturbance re- corded in .\c 19-"'- we are told that the crowd rushed to the theatre, and that it was there tliat the somewhat tumultuous meeting, afterwards de- scribed, took place. We also learn from .loscphus (Ant. XIX. viii. 2) that it was in the theatre at Civsarea that the events described in Ac 12*'''' took place. For general descriptions of the Greek and Roman theatre, reference must be made to the ordinary Dictionaries of Antiquities.

The theatre at Ephesus was on the slope of Mt. Coressus, and was famous as being one of the largest, if not the largest, in the ancient world. A description of the remains with a plan may be found in Woods, Discoveries at Ephesus, ch. iv. p. 68. A large number of inscrip- tions also were found on the site, which have been published in full in Hicks' Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum.

These are specially important as illustrating the very varied part the Greek theatre played in public life, as the place not only of • The Church daj-s for Thaddtcus (Judoa of James) are in the Greek Church 19 June and 21 Aug., in the Latin 28 Oct. (together with Simon) ; on the Armenian see Nilles^, ii. 'isa, 627 ; on the Coptic 702, 721 f. (2 and 28 Epip = Julv); on the Syriac, i. 480 (20 Aug.), 48.'i (IS Oct.) 489.

The Calendar in McLean's Ea^t ^t/rian Daittj Ojlices mentionB Mar Adai for the Sixth Sunday of the Resurrection. amusement, but of every form of large assembly The results are well summed up by Lightfoot, Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 299 — 'The theatre appears as the reco^Tlized place of public assembly. Here edicts are proclaimed, and decrees recorde<l, 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 stinmlate their zeal for the goddess If the "town clerk "had desired to make good his a.^sertion, "AVhat man is there that knoweth not that the city of the Ephesians is sacristan of the great goddess Artemis?" he had only to point to the inscriptions which lined the walls for con* firmation. The very stones would have cried out from the walla in response to his appeal.

' The same Greek word is also used in 1 Co 4' ' for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men,' where the meaning is the scene or spectacle in the theatre. A. C. Headlam.