CHAPTER VIII

Political Divisions of Asia Minor.- Difficulties of the Subject.-Provinces in the Reigns of Claudius and Nero.-I. ASIA. - II. BITHYNIA. - III. PAMPHYLIA. — IV. GALATIA.-V. PONTUS. — VI. CAPPADOCIA. — VII. — CILICIA. - Visitation of the Churches proposed.- Quarrel and Separation of Paul and Barnabas. - Paul and Silas in Cilicia. They cross the Taurus. - Lystra. Timothy. His Circumcision. — Journey through Phrygia. Sickness of St. Paul. His Reception in Galatia.-Journey to the Egean. Alexandria Troas. - St. Paul's Vision.

HE life of St. Paul being that of a traveller, and our purpose being

THE

to give a picture of the circumstances by which he was surrounded, it is often necessary to refer to the geography, both physical and political, of the countries through which he passed. This is the more needful in the case of Asia Minor, not only because it was the scene of a very great portion of his journeys, but because it is less known to ordinary readers than Palestine, Italy, or Greece. We have already described, at some length, the physical geography of those southern districts which are in the immediate neighborhood of Mount Taurus.1 And now that the Apostle's travels take a wider range, and cross the Asiatic peninsula from Syria to the frontiers of Europe, it is important to take a general view of the political geography of this part of the Roman Empire. Unless such a view is obtained in the first place, it is impossible to understand the topographical expressions employed in the narrative, or to conjecture the social relations into which St. Paul was brought in the course of his journeys through Asia Minor.

2

It is, however, no easy task to ascertain the exact boundaries of the Roman provinces in this part of the world at any given date between Augustus and Constantine. In the first place, these boundaries were continually changing. The area of the different political districts was liable to sudden and arbitrary alterations. Such terms as "Asia,' Asia," "Pamphylia," &c., though denoting the extent of a true political jurisdiction, implied a larger or smaller territory at one time than another. And again, we find the names of earlier and later periods of history mixed

142.

1 Ch. L. pp. 19-21. Ch. VI. pp. 141,

2 i. e. the journeys in Acts xvi. and Acts

viii.

8 Acts ii. 9, vi. 9, xvi. 6, xix. 10, 27, 31, xx. 16, 18, xxvii. 2; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Cor. i 8; 2 Tim. i. 15; 1 Pet. i. 1.

4 Acts ii. 10, xiii. 13, xv. 38, xxvii. 5.

up together in inextricable confusion. Some of the oldest geographical terms, such as "Eolis," "Ionia," " Caria," "Lydia," were disappearing from ordinary use in the time of the Apostles: but others, such as "Mysia" and "Lycaonia," still remained. Obsolete and existing divisions are presented to us together: and the common maps of Asia Minor are as unsatisfactory as if a map of France were set before us, distributed half into provinces and half into departments. And in the third place, some of the names have no political significance at all, but express rather the ethnographical relations of ancient tribes. Thus, "Pisidia" 5 denotes a district which might partly be in one province and partly in another; and "Phrygia "" reminds us of the diffusion of an ancient people, the broken portions of whose territory were now under the jurisdiction of three or four distinct governors. Cases of this kind are, at first sight, more embarrassing than the others. They are not merely similar to the twofold subdivision of Ireland, where a province, like Ulster, may contain several definite counties: but a nearer parallel is to be found in Scotland, where a geographical district, associated with many historical recollections, such as Galloway or Lothian,- may be partly

in one county and partly in another.

Our purpose is to elucidate the political subdivisions of Asia Minor as they were in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, or, in other words, to enumerate the provinces which existed, and to describe the boundaries which were assigned to them, in the middle of the first century of the Christian era. The order we shall follow is from West to East, and in so doing we shall not deviate widely from the order in which the provinces were successively incorporated as substantive parts of the Roman Empire. We are not, indeed, to suppose that St. Luke and St. Paul used all their topographical expressions in the strict political sense, even when such a sense was more or less customary. There was an exact usage and a popular usage of all these terms. But the first step towards fixing our geographical ideas of Asia Minor, must be to trace the boundaries of the provinces. When this is done, we shall be better able to distinguish those terms which, about the year 50 A.D., had ceased to have any true political significance, and to discriminate between the technical and the popular language of the sacred writers.

I. ASIA.There is sometimes a remarkable interest associated with the history of a geographical term. One case of this kind is suggested by the allusion which has just been made to the British islands. Early writers speak of Ireland under the appellation of "Scotia." Certain of its inhabitants crossed over to the opposite coast:' their name spread along with their influence: and at length the title of Scotland was entirely transferred from one island to the other. In classical history we have a similar instance in the name of "Italy," which at first only denoted the southernmost extremity of the peninsula: then it was extended so as to include the whole with the exception of Cisalpine Gaul: and finally, crossing the Rubicon, it advanced to the Alps; while the name of " Gaul” retreated beyond them. Another instance, on a larger scale, is presented to us on the south of the Mediterranean. The "Africa" of the Romans spread from a limited territory on the shore of that sea, till it embraced the whole continent which was circumnavigated by Vasco di Gama. And similarly the term, by which we are accustomed to designate the larger and more famous continent of the ancient world, traces its derivation to the "Asian meadow by the streams of the Cayster," celebrated in the poems of Homer.

4

This is the earliest occurrence of the word "Asia." We find, however, even in the older poets, the word used in its widest sense to denote all the countries in the far East. Either the Greeks, made familiar with the original Asia by the settlement of their kindred in its neighborhood, applied it as a generic appellation to all the regions beyond it: or the extension of the kingdom of Lydia from the banks of the Cayster to the Halys as its eastern boundary, diffused the name of Asia as far as that river, and thus suggested the division of Herodotus into " Asia within the Halys" and "Asia beyond the Halys."5 However this might be, the term retained, through the Greek and Roman periods, both a wider and a narrower sense; of which senses we are concerned only with the latter The Asia of the New Testament is not the continent which stretches into the remote East from the Black Sea and the Red Sea, but simply the western portion of that peninsula which, in modern times, has received the name of " Asia Minor." What extent of country, and what political

significance, we are to assign to the term, will be shown by a statement of a few historical changes.

The fall of Croesus reduced the Lydian kingdom to a Persian satrapy. With the rest of the Persian empire, this region west of the Halys fell before the armies of Alexander. In the confusion which followed the conqueror's death, an independent dynasty established itself at Pergamus, not far from the site of ancient Troy. At first their territory was narrow, and Attalus I. had to struggle with the Gauls who had invaded the peninsula, and with the neighboring chieftains of Bithynia, who had invited them.1 Antagonists still more formidable were the Greek kings of Syria, who claimed to be "Kings of Asia," and aimed at the possession of the whole peninsula.' But the Romans appeared in the East, and ordered Antiochus to retire beyond the Taurus, and then conferred substantial rewards on their faithful allies. Rhodes became the mistress of Caria and Lycia, on the opposite coast; and Eumenes, the son of Attalus, received, in the West and North-west, Lydia and Mysia, and a good portion of that vague region in the interior which was usually denominated "Phrygia,"3-stretching in one direction over the district of Lycaonia. Then it was that, as 150 years since the Margraves of Brandenburg became Kings of Prussia, so the Princes of Pergamus became Kings of Asia." For a time they reigned over a highly-civilized territory, which extended from sea to sea. The library of Pergamus was the rival of that of Alexandria: and Attaleia, from whence we have lately seen the Apostle sailing to Syria' (Acts xiv. 25, 26) and Troas, from whence we shall presently see him sailing to Europe (Acts xvi. 11), were the southern and northern (or rather the eastern and western) harbors of King Attalus II. At length the debt of gratitude to the Romans was paid by King Attalus III., who died in the year 133 B. C., and left by testament the whole of his dominions to the benefactors of

66

graphical whole. The common divisions were, "Asia within the Halys" and "Asia beyond the Halys " (as above); or, " Asia within the Taurus" and " Asia beyond the Taurus." It is very important to bear this in mind for some interpreters of the New Testament imagine that the Asia there spoken of is the peninsula of Lesser Asia. The term "Asia Minor "is first found in Orosius, a writer of the fourth century, though " Asia Major" is used by Justin to denote the remote and eastern parts of the continent.

1 See below, p. 207.

2 In the first book of Maccabees (viii. 6) we find Antiochus the Great called by this title. And even after his successors were

driven beyond the Taurus by the Romans, we see it retained by them, as the title of "King of France was retained by our own monarchs until a very recent period. See 1 Macc. xi. 13, xii. 39, xiii. 32; 2 Macc. iii. 3.

8 The case of Mysia, in consequence of the difficulties of Acts xvi. 7, 8, will be examined particularly, when we come to this part of St. Paul's journey.

Thus Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe were probably once in "Asia." See below, under Galatia.

Pp. 177, 178. Another Scripture city, the Philadelphia of Rev. i. 11, iii. 7, was also built by Attalus II. (Philadelphus).

his house. And now the " Province of Asia" appears for the first time as a new and significant term in the history of the world. The newlyacquired possession was placed under a prætor, and ultimately a proconsul. The letters and speeches of Cicero make us familiar with the names of more than one who enjoyed this distinction. One was the orator's brother, Quintus; another was Flaccus, whose conduct as governor he defended before the Senate. Some slight changes in the extent of the province may be traced. Pamphylia was withdrawn from this jurisdiction. Rhodes lost her continental possessions, and Caria was added to Asia, while Lycia was declared independent. The boundary on the side of Phrygia is not easily determined, and was probably variable. But enough has been said to give a general idea of what is meant in the New Testament by that "Asia," which St. Paul attempted to enter (Acts xvi. 6), after passing through Phrygia and Galatia; which St. Peter addressed in his First Epistle (1 Pet. i. 1), along with Pontus, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Bithynia; and which embraced the " seven churches" (Rev. i. 11) whose angels are mentioned in the Revelation of St. John.

II. BITHYNIA. Next to Asia, both in proximity of situation and in the order of its establishment, was the province of Bithynia. Nor were the circumstances very different under which these two provinces passed under the Roman sceptre. As a new dynasty established itself after the death of Alexander on the north-eastern shores of the Egean, so an older dynasty secured its independence at the western edge of the Black Sea. Nicomedes I. was the king who invited the Gauls with whom Attalus I. had to contend: and as áttalus III., the last of the House of Pergamus, paid his debt to the Romans by making them his heirs, so the last of the Bithynian House, Nicomedes III., left his kingdom as a legacy to the same power in the year 75. It received some accessions on the east after the defeat of Mithridates; and in this condition we find it in the list given by Dio of the provinces of Augustus; the debatable land between it and Asia being the district of Mysia, through which it is neither easy nor necessary to draw the exact frontier-line. Stretching inland from the

1 We learn from Acts xix. 38-"there are proconsuls (deputies)”—that it was a proconsular or senatorial province. The important distinction between the emperor's and the senate's provinces has been carefully stated in Ch. V. pp. 129-31. The incidental proof in the Acts is confirmed by Strabo and Dio, who tell us that Augustus made Asia a proconsular province.

2 Hence we find both the sacred and heathen writers of the period sometimes including Phrygia in Asia and sometimes excluding it. In 1 Pet. i. 1 it seems to be included; in Acts ii. 9, 10, xvi. 6, it is expressly excluded.

* See below, on Acts xvi. 7, 8.