Abstract
This article suggests that Eph. 5.4, 12 are veiled allusions to the cult of the mother goddess Demeter/Cybele as practised in the city of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (to which the letter we now know as Ephesians was first directed by a later disciple of Paul). Furthermore, it contends that a careful investigation of what we know about ancient cultic festivals honouring the mother-goddess from other sources (notably The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Diodorus Siculus's Library of History, Pausanius's Guide to Greece, Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae, Clement of Alexandria's Exhortation to the Greeks, Apollodorus's The Library, and two important scholia from Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans) collectively help to shed important light on the background of Eph. 5.4 and 5.12. The article concludes by conjecturing that the religion of the Hellenistic mystery cults should not be summarily dismissed, given that they provide an acceptable background against which both the New Testament letter to the Ephesians and the letter to the Colossians can be reasonably interpreted.
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