15 Preface هٰؤُلاءِ قَومُنَا اتَّخَذوا مِن دونِهِ آلِهَةً ۖ لَولا يَأتونَ عَلَيهِم بِسُلطانٍ بَيِّنٍ ۖ فَمَن أَظلَمُ مِمَّنِ افتَرىٰ عَلَى اللَّهِ كَذِبًاYusuf Ali“These our people have taken1 for worship gods other than Him: why do they not bring forward an authority clear (and convincing) for what they do? Who doth more wrong than such as invent a falsehood against God.Besides the heathen gods, the cult of the Emperors also became fashionable in the Roman Empire in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. The statue of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesus had been one of the wonders of the ancient world. The city was a great seaport and the capital of Roman Asia. We may therefore imagine how the heathen cults must have flourished there. St. Paul spent three years preaching there, and was mobbed and assaulted, and compelled to leave (Acts, 19:1-9).