1. _Unto the angel._ The minister; the presiding presbyter; the bishop――in the primitive sense of the word bishop――denoting one who had the spiritual charge of a congregation. See Notes on ch. i. 20. ¶ _Of the church._ Not of the _churches_ of Ephesus, but of the _one church_ of that city. There is no evidence that the word is used in a collective sense to denote a group of churches, like a diocese; nor is there any evidence that there _was_ such a group of churches in Ephesus, or that there was more than one church in that city. It is probable that all who were Christians there were regarded as members of one church――though for convenience they may have met for worship in different places. Thus there was one church in Corinth (1 Co. i. 1); one church in Thessalonica (1 Th. i. 1), &c. ¶ _Of Ephesus._ On the situation of Ephesus, see Notes on Ac. xviii. 19, and the Intro. to the Notes on the Epistle to the Ephesians, § 1, and the engraving there. It was the capital of Ionia; was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor in the Mythic times, and was _said_ to have been founded by the Amazons. It was situated on the river Cayster, not far from the Icarian Sea, between Smyrna and Miletus. It was one of the most considerable cities of Asia Minor, and while, about the epoch when Christianity was introduced, other cities declined, Ephesus rose more and more. It owed its prosperity, in part, to the favour of its governors; for Lysimachus named the city Arsinöe, in honour of his second wife, and Attalus Philadelphus furnished it with splendid wharves and docks. Under the Romans it was the capital not only of Ionia, but of the entire province of Asia, and bore the honourable title of _the first and greatest metropolis of Asia_. John is supposed to have resided in this city, and to have preached the gospel there for many years; and on this account, perhaps, it was, as well as on account of the relative importance of the city, that the first epistle of the seven was addressed to that church. On the present condition of the ruins of Ephesus, see Notes on ver. 5. We have no means whatever of ascertaining the size of the church when John wrote the book of Revelation. From the fact, however, that Paul, as is supposed (see Intro. to the Epistle to the Ephesians, § 2), laboured there for about three years; that there was a body of “elders” who presided over the church there (Ac. xx. 17); and that the apostle John seems to have spent a considerable part of his life there in preaching the gospel, it may be presumed that there was a large and flourishing church in that city. The epistle before us shows also that it was characterized {61} by distinguished piety. ¶ _These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand._ See Notes on ch. i. 16. The object here seems to be to turn the attention of the church in Ephesus to some attribute of the Saviour which deserved their special regard, or which constituted a special reason for attending to what