Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 20:30

Acts 20:30. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. The Church of Ephesus singularly enough became notorious in after days as a famous seat of the great and widespread Gnostic heresy. Even in the New Testament writings, no fewer than six of the pioneers of these fatal teachers of error are mentioned as belonging to Ephesus. In the First Epistle to Timothy we hear of Hymenæus and Alexander (chap. Acts 1:20). In the Second Epistle to the same chief presbyter of Ephesus, mention is made of Phygellus and Hermogenes (chap. Acts 1:15), and of Philetus (chap, Acts 2:17). These Epistles were written in A.D. 65-66. In the Third Epistle of John, who lived at Ephesus, written about A.D. 90, Acts 20:9, we read of another of these false teachers, Diotrephes.

In the Apocalypse, written A.D. 80-90, in the Epistle addressed to the angel of the Church in this same city of Ephesus, it is said that there were among them those who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes (chap. Acts 2:6), ‘which I also hate.' Church history (Eusebius, H. E. iv. 14) recounts, too, how the Apostle John met with the heresiarch Cerinthus during his residence at Ephesus. ‘Ephesus,' observes Creuzer (quoted by Gloag), ‘was above all others the place where oriental views were in various ways combined with the mythology and philosophy of Greece; in truth, this city was a complete storehouse of magical arts and deceptions' (see Acts 19:19; Acts 19:35).

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 20:30

Old Testament

New Testament