of Christianity. Sergius Paulus, the proconsul whom they converted, is mentioned in an extant inscription, which, however, is undated. Other inscriptions make it probable that he was there in 47 A.D., a year in other respects likely for the Apostles' visit.1 Paulus was evidently a man with some pretensions to culture— he has a Magian in his entourage-and it seems probable that he is to be identified with one whom Pliny quotes as an authority on natural history. Thus, in his person, Christendom recruited a representative of science and education and a Roman official of high rank. The distinction thus gained is likely to have reacted on Rome itself: on the local Church it was bound to have great influence. Nor did the Cypriot Church lose the advantage thus secured. The island was able quite early to maintain no fewer than thirteen bishoprics, and in the fourth century it was erected into an autonomous patriarchate, on the strength of the discovery of St. Matthew's Gospel in the reputed tomb of St. Barnabas.

Cilicia.

Of Christianity in Cilicia, we have practically no detailed information for the first three centuries: though the fact that it was St. Paul's native province, and the intellectual and material importance of its capital, Tarsus, make it certain that Cilicia will have played no mean part in the expansion of Christianity. St. Luke implies in more than one place that there were Cilician "churches" apart from Tarsus itself: but on Tarsus the political capital,

1 See Hastings' Dict., s. v. "Chronology," pp. 417, 421.

2 The patriarch of Cyprus still retains the privilege of signing his name in red ink!

3 Acts xv. 23, 41.

and no doubt from the first the ecclesiastical capital Importance of Cilicia-though its metropolitan dignity of Tarsus. is first clearly to be inferred in the middle of the third century the little knowledge we have is focussed. This city achieved by force of its natural advantages an enormous influence on the surrounding districts while its "university" rivalled, if it did not excel, in importance those of Athens and Alexandria. For us its supreme importance lies in the fact that it produced St. Paul.2

A good and safe harbour, formed by the widening of the Cydnus into a lagoon near its mouth, and a commanding position in a fertile plain on the great trade route between the important passes of the "Syrian" and "Cilician Gate," made it a meetingplace between Asia Minor and Assyria, and between them and the world in general. Tarsus was essentially a Greek city, with a select timocratic franchise; and, in St. Paul's time, had been governed for two generations by Stoic philosophers, first by Athenodorus, Augustus' tutor and protégé, and then by Nestor, to whom Saul may have listened in his boyhood. Yet all the time it retained a decidedly Oriental atmosphere, inherited from the days of its native kings and its Persian satraps and fostered by its proximity to Syria.3

The fact that, in 49 A.D., "brethren" of Cilicia are coupled with those of Antioch and Syria in the superscription of the decretal letter from Jerusalem,*

See Eus., H. E., vi. 46.

2 Acts ix. 11; xxi. 37; xxii. 3.

3 See Ramsay, in Hastings' Dict., s. v. "Tarsus."

4 Acts xv. 23.

shows how early Christianity had obtained a footing; and when, in the following spring, Paul and Silas passed through Cilicia, it was to "confirm" churches previously founded. St. Paul must have been active there in the years (? 38-43) which followed his first visit to Jerusalem; and Barnabas, when he journeyed to Tarsus in quest of him, may have left the mark of his earnest and genial personality. Nor is it fanciful to suppose that earlier still some tentative beginnings of evangelisation had been made among the Cilician Jews, in whose synagogue at Jerusalem Stephen's preaching had made so great an impression.2

1 Gal. i. 21; cf. Acts ix. 30; xi. 24, 25.

2 Acts vi. 9.

CHAPTER VII

GENTILE CHRISTIANITY: ASIA MINOR

Asia Minor

first

Chris

SIA MINOR was, during the first three centuries, the Christian country par excellence, and is the true mother of Constantinopolitan Christianity.1 Here the Church subdued paganism by a slow and steady absorption, its successes assured partly by the nature of the soil, partly by the eminent thoroughly character of its first representatives and founders. Besides Paul, Barnabas, and Silas, tianised. and Paul's lieutenants, Timothy, Titus, Tychicus, Trophimus, and Epaphroditus, the Church in Asia Minor numbers among its first missionaries and organisers the Apostles John and Philip and, it may be, also St. Andrew, Philip the Evangelist, John "the Presbyter," and Aristion, "disciple of the Lord."2 And the soil had been specially prepared for these sowers. On the one hand, Hellenism assumed here a form Special peculiarly susceptible to Christian inpreparation fluence; and, even where it mingled in of the soil. strange ways with paganism, produced a belief in the "Most High God" which opened the door for Christianity. The zealous Jews of Asia, who did their best to make St. Paul's life a burden to him, had

Its eminent missionaries.

1 Cf. Harnack, ii. 182 sqq.

2 See above, ch. v., p. 106, and below, ch. viii., p. 150 sq.

unconsciously done much to prepare an entrance for his teaching into many a pagan heart. On the other hand, some districts offered an absolutely virgin soil. And all through the great peninsula the general breakdown of local traditions under the Roman imperial rule, the absence of any one strong national sentiment or national religion, told in favour of the new teaching. Moreover, the pagan attempt to do what Christianity alone could accomplish, and bind together the congeries of alien tribes and races with a common religious bond-the highly organised institution of emperor-worship, which played no small part in the Roman pacification of Asia Minor, while it led to bloody strife for many years to come-(is it for this that the Angel of the Church of Pergamos is said to "dwell" where Satan's throne is ?1)-contributed also its share to the preparation of the soil. Some say it furnished a model for certain details of the Church's organisation. At any rate, it is striking to find St. Paul, in his encyclical letter to the Asiatic churches, applying to the Redeemer the language of "imperial worship." 2

stands by itself.

It is in the province of Asia,3 that large and flourishing province which held a westernmost place in the sub-continent, that the interest Province centres most intensely. Here, apart from of Asia early and trustworthy tradition, we have within the New Testament itself the threefold witness of St. Luke, St. Paul, and St. John. For no other district is the evidence so full and strong: though for the southern portion of the extensive province of Galatia (according to the view which may 2 2 Eph. ii. 14. 3 See next chapter.

1 Rev. ii. 13.