civic descent and physical capability, was enrolled on the register of his deme (ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον). He thereby at once became liable to the military training and duties, which, at least in the earliest times, were the main object of the Ephebia. In the time of Aristotle the names of the enrolled ephebi were engraved on a bronze pillar (formerly on wooden tablets) in front of the council-chamber. After admission to the college, the ephebus took the oath of allegiance, recorded in Pollux and Stobaeus (but not in Aristotle), in the temple of Aglaurus, and was sent to Munychia or Acte to form one of the garrison. At the end of the first year of training, the ephebi were reviewed, and, if their performance was satisfactory, were provided by the state with a spear and a shield, which, together with the chlamys (cloak) and petasus (broad-brimmed hat), made up their equipment. In their second year they were transferred to other garrisons in Attica, patrolled the frontiers, and on occasion took an active part in war. During these two years they were free from taxation, and were not allowed (except in certain cases) to appear in the law courts as plaintiffs or defendants. The ephebi took part in some of the most important Athenian festivals. Thus during the Eleusinia they were told off to fetch the sacred objects from Eleusis and to escort the image of Iacchus on the sacred way. They also performed police duty at the meetings of the ecclesia.
After the end of the 4th century B.C. the institution underwent a radical change. Enrolment ceased to be obligatory, lasted only for a year, and the limit of age was dispensed with. Inscriptions attest a continually decreasing number of ephebi, and with the admission of foreigners the college lost its representative national character. This was mainly due to the weakening of the military spirit and the progress of intellectual culture. The military element was no longer all-important, and the ephebia became a sort of university for well-to-do young men of good family, whose social position has been compared with that of the Athenian “knights” of earlier times. The institution lasted till the end of the 3rd century A.D.
It is probable that the ephebia was in existence in the 5th century B.C., and controlled by the Areopagus and strategus as its moral and military supervisors. In the 4th century their place was taken by ten sophronistae (one for each tribe), who, as the name implies, took special interest in the morals of those under them, their military training being in the hands of experts, of whom the chief were the hoplomachus, the acontistes, the toxotes and the aphetes (instructors respectively in the use of arms, javelin-throwing, archery and the use of artillery engines). Later, the sophronistae were superseded by a single official called cosmetes, elected for a year by the people, who appointed the instructors. When the ephebia instead of a military college became a university, the military instructors were replaced by philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians and artists. In Roman imperial times several new officials were introduced, one of special importance being the director of the Diogeneion, where youths under age were trained for the ephebia. At this period the college of ephebi was a miniature city; its members called themselves “citizens,” and it possessed an archon, strategus, herald and other officials, after the model of ancient Athens.
There is an extensive class of inscriptions, ranging from the 3rd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., containing decrees relating to the ephebi, their officers and instructors, and lists of the same, and a whole chapter (42) of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens is devoted to the subject. The most important treatises on the subject are: W. Dittenberger, De ephebis Atticis (Göttingen, 1863); A. Dumont, Essai sur l’éphébie attique (1875–1876); L. Grasberger, Erziehung und Unterricht im klassichen Altertum, iii. (Würzburg, 1881); J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education (1881); P. Girard, L’Éducation athénienne au V e et IV e siècle avant J.-C. (2nd ed., 1891), and article in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités which contains further bibliographical references; G. Gilbert, The Constitutional Antiquities of Athens (Eng. tr., 1895); G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer (1892); T. Thalheim and J. Öhler in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, v. pt. 2 (1905); W. W. Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens (1877).
EPHEMERIS (Greek for a “diary”), a table giving for stated
times the apparent position and other numerical particulars
relating to a heavenly body. The Astronomical Ephemeris,
familiarly known as the “Nautical Almanac,” is a national annual
publication containing ephemerides of the principal or more
conspicuous heavenly bodies, elements and other data of eclipses,
and other matter useful to the astronomer and navigator. The
governments of the United Kingdom, United States, France,
Germany and Spain publish such annals.
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. This book of the New
Testament, the most general and least occasional and polemic
of all the Pauline epistles, a large section of which seems almost
like the literary elaboration of a theological topic, may best be
described as a solemn oration, addressed to absent hearers, and
intended not primarily to clarify their minds but to stir their
emotions. It is thus a true letter, but in the grand style, verging
on the nature not of an essay but a poem. Ephesians has been
called “the crown of St Paul’s writings,” and whether it be
measured by its theological or its literary interest and importance,
it can fairly dispute with Romans the claim to be his greatest
epistle. In the public and private use of Christians some parts
of Ephesians have been among the most favourite of all New
Testament passages. Like its sister Epistle to the Colossians, it
represents, whoever wrote it, deep experience and bold use of
reflection on the meaning of that experience; if it be from the
pen of the Apostle Paul, it reveals to us a distinct and important
phase of his thought.
To the nature of the epistle correspond well the facts of its title and address. The title “To the Ephesians” is found in the Muratorian canon, in Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, as well as in all the earliest MSS. and versions. Marcion, however (c. A.D. 150), used and recommended copies with the title “To the Laodiceans.” This would be inexplicable if Eph. i. 1 had read in Marcion’s copies, as it does in most ancient authorities, “To the saints which are at Ephesus”; but in fact the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ of verse 1 were probably absent. They were not contained in the text used by Origen (d. 253); Basil (d. 379) says that “ancient copies” omitted the words; and they are actually omitted by Codices B (Vaticanus, 4th century) and א (Sinaiticus, 4th century), together with Codex 67 (11th century). The words “in Ephesus” were thus probably originally lacking in the address, and were inserted from the suggestion of the title. Either the address was general (“to the saints who are also faithful”) or else a blank was left. In the latter case the name may have been intended to be supplied orally, in communicating the letter, or a different name may have been written in each of the individual copies. Under any of these hypotheses the address would indicate that we have a circular letter, written to a group of churches, doubtless in Asia Minor. This would account for the general character of the epistle, as well as for the entire and striking absence of personal greetings and of concrete allusions to existing circumstances among the readers. It appears to have drawn its title, “To the Ephesians,” from one of the churches for which it was intended, perhaps the one from which a copy was secured when Paul’s epistles were collected, shortly before or after the year 100. That our epistle is the one referred to in Col. iv. 16, which was to be had by the Colossians from Laodicea, is not unlikely. Such an identification doubtless led Marcion to alter the title in his copies.
The structure of Ephesians is epistolary; it opens with the usual salutation (i. 1-2) and closes with a brief personal note and formal farewell (vi. 21-24). In the intervening body of the epistle the writer also follows the regular form of a letter. In an ordinary Greek letter (as the papyri show) we should find the salutation followed by an expression of gratification over the correspondent’s good health and of prayer for its continuance. Paul habitually expanded and deepened this, and, in this case, that paragraph is enormously enlarged, so that it may be regarded as including chapters i.-iii., and as carrying the main thought of the epistle. Chapters iv.-vi. merely make application of the main ideas worked out in chapters i.-iii. Throughout the epistle we have a singular combination of the seemingly desultory method of a letter, turning aside at a word and straying wherever
