makes Bartholomew preach in India mentions a King Polemios there.1

Province of Asia.

When we pass to the Roman province of Asia we have more evidence to go upon. There is strong testimony, as we have said, to the residence of St. John at Ephesus after his release from Patmos on the death of Domitian, 96 A.D.2 And there and in the neighbourhood he seems to have spent the last years of his long life, ruling and organising the "Seven Churches" St. John. of Asia, to which he addresses the Epistles of the Apocalypse. It is noticeable that of these only two, Ephesus and Laodicea, are known to have. any direct connexion with the missions of St. Paul: though the whole of the province is described as influenced by his two years' sojourn in the capital (December, 53-March, 56 A.D.), while Thyatira is the native town of his influential convert Lydia. At Ephesus, too, is probably to be located the activity of Aristion, "the disciple of the Lord," and of and John a certain "Elder (or Presbyter) John," both mentioned by Papias, to the latter of whom rather than to the son of Zebedee some writers would assign the Johannine writings of the New Testament.

Aristion

the Elder.

4

Of other churches in the province, Hierapolis in the Lycus Valley 5 is by tradition the residence of the Apostle Philip's later years; and his namesake Philip

1

Ramsay, in Hastings' Dict., s. v. "Pontus."

2 See further below, ch. viii., p. 150.

3 Rev. ii., iii.

4 Ap. Eus., H. E., iii. 39.

5 Cf. Col. iv. 13.

the Evangelist, though sometimes placed also at

Hierapolis, is more probably to be located Philip at Tralles on the great east road near Apostle Ephesus. We may presume that he and and Philip his family left Caesarea on the outbreak Evangelist. of the war in 65 A.D. The Apostle Philip before settling in Hierapolis is said to have carried the Gospel to Lydia and Galatia and even to the Scythians.

As regards missions in the Balkan Peninsula, we have already spoken of the supposed evangelisation of Thrace by St. Andrew. The tradition

Balkan

which places that Apostle's martyrdom in Peninsula. Achaia may be regarded as somewhat doubtful, as also that which brings St. Philip the Apostle to Athens and Silas to Corinth. What is certain is that in founding flourishing churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth, St. Paul had planted Christianity firmly in Grecian soil. It may well be, however, that further evangelisation was sorely needed in the intellectual capital of Hellas.

Of missions to the East there is satisfactory evidence in general, though the specific details are somewhat elusive. To Arabia, St. Paul says Missions he betook himself immediately after his to the conversion; and the context suggests that East. he preached there.2 Seed may have been sown by some of the "Arabian" pilgrims who had heard St. Peter's Pentecostal sermon.3 No less than six of the Twelve are connected by earlier or later Attributed tradition with the evangelisation of the to the Orient, from Edessa, where the great eastern trade routes from Asia Minor and Syria unite, to

Twelve.

1 Acts xxi. 8 sqq.

2 Gal. i. 16, 17.

Acts ii. 11.

Parthia, Persia, and India. With the last-named country are associated, more or less hazardously, the names of St. Matthew, St. Bartholomew, and St. Thomas. The name of Thomas still persists in Malabar, though the identity of the Apostle of India with him of the New Testament is far from certain. With Persia is connected, by a very doubtful tradition, the name of James the son of Alphaeus; with Parthia, Matthew, Philip, and Thomas; with Edessa, Thaddaeus (a confusion, perhaps, as we have hinted, with the Syriac name Addai) and, more probably, St. Thomas, who is said to have been buried there. It is certain that the tomb of an Apostolic missionary was early shown at Edessa, but whether it was the tomb of Thomas, Thaddaeus, or of Jude is not so clear.

An Ethiopian mission is attributed both to St. Matthew and to St. Matthias, suggesting here also a confusion of names: yet, apart from a Ethiopia. special visit of a member of the Apostolic College, we may feel sure that Christianity had reached the kingdom of Candace even before the Twelve had dispersed on their world-wide missions. Lower Egypt is by tradition associated with St. Mark; and Alexandria was certainly in constant communication alike with Cyprus where St. Luke's narrative leaves St. Mark, and with Rome where his presence is implied alike in Petrine and in Pauline Summary.

2

writings. If we add the known presence of active converts in Cyrenaica and assume that St. Paul journeying to Spain touched at some port of Southern Gaul, where there were certainly flourishing

1 Cf. Acts viii. 27.

2 Philem. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11; 1 Peter v. 13.

churches, at Vienne and Lyons, by the middle of the second century, we shall see how widely Apostolic Christianity had spread her nets. Along the whole northern coast of the Mediterranean and half the south coast there were groups of those who named the name of Christ. At Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, and Alexandria, the great centres of government, of culture, and of commerce, the cross was firmly planted. Three parts of the Euxine coast and practically the whole of Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor had been penetrated; while eastward beyond the confines of the Roman Empire the disciples of Him Who was "born King of the Jews" had reversed the journey of the pilgrim Magi, and carried their message of peace across the deserts towards the rising sun.

1 See below, ch x., pp. 187, 188.

CHAPTER VI

GENTILE CHRISTIANITY: THE LEVANT

THE

No epistolary materials for this group.

HE first group of Gentile churches which we have to consider is one for which, unfortunately, no For the epistolary materials are left us. study of the Galatian churches we have the Epistle which bears their name; for those of "Asia" we have those addressed to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to Philemon. The two Epistles to the Thessalonians and that to the Philippians throw light on the conditions of Christian life in Macedonia, and the two to the Corinthians are rich in material for the study of primitive Achaian Christianity; while the Epistle to the Romans, though written before St. Paul had ever visited the city, furnishes interesting details as to the composition of the Christian community there in the year 56 A.D.

But if for Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus, such materials are lacking, we have the compensating advantage of a fullness of detail in the narrative about Antioch which goes far to corroborate the tradition connecting the historian of the Acts with that city.1 Cyprus and Cilicia are not, perhaps, so fully treated as we might have hoped in the case of the birthplaces of Barnabas and Paul.

1 Eus., H. E., iii. 4. He"

was of Antiochene parentage."