Diana

Diana, called Artemis in Greek, was the goddess of hunting, the moon, and chastity, worshipped as the great mother deity of Ephesus. Her magnificent temple there—one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world—made her cult the defining feature of Ephesian civic and economic life. She appears in the New Testament in Acts 19, where Paul's preaching so diminished the market for silver shrines of the goddess that the silversmiths' guild, led by Demetrius, incited a riot in her honor; the crowd filled the theater for two hours chanting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" (Acts 19:28, 34).

The Ephesian Artemis was distinct from the Greek Artemis of classical mythology: she was depicted as a multi-breasted fertility figure, reflecting an Eastern goddess tradition predating Greek influence. The episode in Acts illustrates both the economic power of ancient religion and the direct challenge the gospel of Christ posed to the pagan cult industry of Asia Minor.