The Bible Undressed

            I have spent most of my life going to various churches and yet I never heard the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Have you? It is an old Christian tale which is set in the year 250 CE (AD). However, I first learned of it in the Qur’an! Muhammad makes reference to the story in chapter (sura) 18 entitled The Cave (see my Quran post Q018).. Muhammad often borrows story from the Jews and Christians, so it is not unusual for him to use this story as well. I’ll get to his version in a bit.

            Here is the story as cited in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913:

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The story is this: Decius (249-251) once came to Ephesus to enforce his laws against Christians — a gruesome description of the horrors he made them suffer follows — here he found seven noble young men, named Maximillian, Jamblichos, Martin, John, Dionysios, Exakostodianos, and Antoninos (so Metaphrastes; the names vary considerably; Gregory of Tours has Achillides, Diomedes, Diogenus, Probatus, Stephanus, Sambatus, and Quiriacus), who were Christians. The emperor tried them and then gave them a short time for consideration, till he came back again to Ephesus. They gave their property to the poor, took a few coins only with them and went into a cave on Mount Anchilos to pray and prepare for death. Decius came back after a journey and inquired after these seven men. They heard of his return and then, as they said their last prayer in the cave before giving themselves up, fell asleep. The emperor told his soldiers to find them, and when found asleep in the cave he ordered it to be closed up with huge stones and sealed; thus they were buried alive. But a Christian came and wrote on the outside the names of the martyrs and their story. Years passed, the empire became Christian, and Theodosius [either the Great (379-395) or the Younger (408-450), Koch, op.cit. infra, p.12], reigned. In his time some heretics denied the resurrection of the body. While this controversy went on, a rich landowner named Adolios had the Sleepers’ cave opened, to use it as a cattle-stall. Then they awake, thinking they have slept only one night, and send one of their number (Diomedes) to the city to buy food, that they may eat before they give themselves up. Diomedes comes into Ephesus and the usual story of cross-purposes follows. He is amazed to see crosses over churches, and the people cannot understand whence he got his money coined by Decius. Of course at last it comes out that the last thing he knew was Decius’s reign; eventually the bishop and the prefect go up to the cave with him, where they find the six others and the inscription. Theodosius is sent for, and the saints tell him their story. Every one rejoices at this proof of the resurrection of the body. The sleepers, having improved the occasion by a long discourse, then die praising God. The emperor wants to build golden tombs for them, but they appear to him in a dream and ask to be buried in the earth in their cave. The cave is adorned with precious stones, a great church built over it, and every year the feast of the Seven Sleepers is kept.

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Decius orders the walling in of the seven sleepers.
 From a 14th-century manuscript.

            So, the seven men go to sleep under the persecution of Decius, but awaken 100 years later to find the empire is now Christian! Hurray! If you want an even more detailed version of  the story, the Orthodox church has their version of this tale and you can find it at the Orthodox Church in America website: www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/08/04/102195-7-holy-youths-seven-sleepers-of-ephesus. The Orthodox Church has specific dates in their calendar commemorating the events of the story. Interesting that the story even has the specific names of the men (just as three names were created for the Magi that visited baby Jesus). Note that the story is tied to the idea of the resurrection of the body (as opposed to a purely spiritual non-bodily resurrection).            

            Muhammad refers to the story in Sura 18 entitled The Cave, but does not give much detail. He calls them the Companions of the Cave. He does add a dog which lies at the entrance of the cave as if to guard it; that’s a cute touch. He also says the sleep lasted about 300 years, not just 100. (The Orthodox church splits the difference at 200.) But he uses the story for the same reason as the Christians: to prove the ability of God to raise people from the dead. You see, just as God raised these men from their sleep after 300 years so God can raise the dead back to life at the judgment. (Personally, I don’t think an ancient story like this is ‘proof’ of anything, but that is how the Christians and Muhammad used it.)

The seven sleepers along with the dog mentioned by Muhammad
(image from the MadainProject.com)

            As with any ancient story there are variations, such as the difference in the number of years the men slept. Various locations claim to be the site at which this took place. Here is the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers in Ephesus, Turkey. It may have been a Byzantine tomb that was fashioned into a church at some point and associated with the cave of the Sleepers.

There is another site in Chenini, Tunisia (North Africa). The legend goes that seven Christians were imprisoned by the Romans at this spot, and locked away for 400 years. When they were let out, they had grown to heights of about 12 feet! That’s an interesting variation.

            Other sites include Tarsus and Kahramanmaraş in Turkey, Mar Musa in Syria and Amman in Jordan. There is even this site in Turpan, China which is thought to have been a Buddhist shrine later converted to a Muslim shrine and then tagged as the cave of the seven sleepers:

            So, it seems that lots of places wanted to get in on the Seven Sleepers story. Clearly the story was well-known and widespread in the past, but it seems to have fallen off the radar at some point. The seven sleepers are venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and known in the Roman Catholic Church and give their name to a chapter in the Qur’an, but I am betting that most Protestants and evangelicals do not know the story. After all, it is not in the Bible, right?

            I think stories like this are significant. Most people will dismiss this story as legend. But then where did it come from? Who invented the story? I think we know the ‘why’: it was meant to support the idea of bodily resurrection and refute those who believed otherwise. But, would earnest Christians invent stories to ‘prove’ a point? It seems so. Unless you take this story as historical and factual.

            So, what does this mean for Bible stories? Were the originators of the Bible stories, like the stories of Jesus, more honest and pure-hearted and thus would never invent a story that was not factual? Heaven forbid! Yet we know that from the early years of Christianity people were inventing stories about Jesus and his disciples. Like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and its odd stories about young Jesus. Or other gospels, like those attributed to Peter, Thomas, Judas and Mary Magdalene and others, but were never accepted by the Church as Scripture. There are stories of Paul and his female disciple Thecla. Or the Acts of Peter, in which he brings down a flying magician and resurrects a dead fish. These stories are either true – though few people think so – or somebody had to invent them. It seems clear that Christians were willing to invent stories in support of their preaching of what they saw as ‘the truth.’ Mind you, one can use fiction to present truth: authors like Dickens and Tolstoy and Orwell and many others used their stories to express ‘true’ ideas, but they did not pretend the stories were factual. However, the stories told by early Christians, like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, apparently were presented as fact, not fiction. Is that righteous in your view?

            There is an alternative view. Perhaps such stories were originally meant as “fan fiction.” They were told as fictional stories to convey certain points about God, Jesus and the disciples. But over time and as they were disseminated they were received as true tales of actual events. We all want reassurance that our beliefs are correct, and so stories that corroborate our beliefs are easy to accept. That is why people can accept miracle stories told within their own faith tradition while rejecting similar stories told in other religions.

            So, did seven young men really sleep for 100 years or more in a cave outside Ephesus? Or is it just an amusing fable meant to convey a doctrinal lesson? Or maybe it was originally just an amusing story, period, that someone told for entertainment but others picked up on it to ‘prove’ their point about the resurrection of the body. Who can say? What do you think of the story? Factual? Plausible? Fictional? “Meant for entertainment purposes only?”

(Submit your comments and questions below.)

Thinking exercise:

There are many amazing, miraculous stories that have been passed down to us from ancient times, including those in the Bible. If you believe some of these stories are factual while others are fantasy then explain the criteria you use to decide which is which.