Seven Sleepers of Ephesus were seven Christian youths in a legend who were said to have fled to the mountains near Ephesus in Asia Minor to escape the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian in A.D. 303. Pursuers discovered their hiding place and blocked the entrance. Two hundred years later, a shepherd stumbled upon the cave and discovered seven youths asleep. When he awakened them, they believed that only a night had passed. One of them went to Ephesus for food and offered to pay for it with 200-year-old coins. He was arrested as a thief of hidden treasure. But Emperor Theodosius II believed a miracle had taken place and led the youth in a triumphant procession to the cave. Later, Theodosius had a great church and graveyard built to mark the spot. The seven sleepers lived for only a short time. All died at the same moment and were buried where they had slept. According to another version of the legend, the youths fell asleep again and will not awaken until the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In 1928, Franz Miltner, an Austrian archaeologist, found a tomb near Ephesus which shows that the tale of the Seven Sleepers has some basis in fact. Theodosius’s ancient church had been covered by other churches and was discovered only by accident.
The legend of the Seven Sleepers began in Syria and appeared in European literature in the A.D. 500’s. The legend was a favorite theme in the art of the Middle Ages, and the story is told in the Qur’ān, the Muslim holy book.
