The Cooling

Ephesus is the greatest city in Roman Asia — its harbour slowly silting, its temples gilded, its great church the most defended in the province. For thirty years Nikolaos has been that church's guardian: patient, tireless, unbeaten by any false teacher or any pressure of Rome. The assembly is proud of him. He is proud of it.

But his wife prays alone now, in the light of a lamp he has stopped tending. A young convert who came to him burning has gone quiet and cold. And Niko's own prayers have begun to feel like a duty done well and felt not at all.

A man can be right about everything and still lose the one thing being right was for. Offshore, on Patmos, a letter is being written to the seven churches of Asia — and Ephesus is the first name on it.