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                                              Colossian Problems

                                                          Part 1:

 

                           Jews and Christians

                            in the Lycus Valley

 

 

                                                      F. F. Bruce

 

 


 

          In antiquity several rivers in Asia Minor were called the Lycus

River.1  The Lycus River pertaining to Colossians watered part of

southwestern Phrygia and flowed into the Maeander River. When

one speaks of the cities of the Lycus Valley, he usually means the

three which are mentioned in the Book of Colossians: Colossae,

Laodicea, and Hierapolis (Col. 2:1; 4:13). Of these three, Colossae

was by far the oldest; it was a city when Xerxes and his army

passed that way in 480 B.C.2 Laodicea was founded by the

Seleucid King Antiochus II (261-246 B.C.); Hierapolis received

the constitution of a city from Eumenes II, king of Pergamum

(197-160 B.C.).

          The region formed part of the Persian Empire from Cyrus'

overthrow of Croesus, king of Lydia, in 546 B.C. to Alexander the

Great's conquest of Asia Minor in 334 B.C. For the next century

and a half the Lycus Valley was ruled by Alexander and his

successors, but by the Peace of Apamea, imposed by the Romans

on Antiochus III in 188 B.C., it was taken from the Seleucids and

added to the kingdom of Pergamum, which was in alliance with

Rome. In 133 B.C. the last king of Pergamum bequeathed his

realm to the Romans, who four years later reorganized it as the

province of Asia. The Lycus Valley was then incorporated in the

Roman Empire, and remained so for many centuries.

          The cities of the Lycus Valley enjoyed economic prosperity in

spite of the severe damage they suffered from time to time be-

cause of earthquakes. Their prosperity was based on their prin-

                                                  3

 



 

cipal industry -- the manufacture and preparation of woolen

fabrics, which were carried by river to the Aegean coast and

exported to various parts of the ancient world.

 

                              Jewish Settlers in Phrygia

 

          Some Jewish settlement in western Asia Minor can be traced

back to the sixth century B.C.; apparently Jewish exiles were in

the Lydian capital, Sardis, at the time of the Prophet Obadiah.3

Josephus said Seleucus I (312-281 B.C.) granted Jews full civic

rights in all the cities he founded.4 (It is wise to consider carefully

what is meant by "full civic rights" when their enjoyment by Jews

in a Hellenistic city is mentioned by Josephus or other Jewish

writers.) Antiochus II is said to have planted Jewish colonies in

the cities of Ionia.5 But Jewish settlement in Phrygia on any

significant scale is to be dated late in the third century B.C.,

when Antiochus III, having recovered Lydia and Phrygia from his

rebellious uncle Achaeus (214 B.C.), ordered his satrap Zeuxis to

send 2,000 Jewish families with their property from Babylonia as

military settlers in the garrisons and other vital centers of those

two regions. Houses and cultivable lands were to be provided for

them, they were to be exempt from taxation for 10 years, and they

were to have the right to live under their own laws.6

          The essential credibility of this report by Josephus, and of

the royal decree which it embodies, may be confidently accepted.

The king's letter to Zeuxis, says Rostovtzeff, "undoubtedly gives

us exactly the normal procedure when the Seleucids founded a

colony."7 One Zeuxis was satrap of Babylonia about 220 B.C.;8

he may be identical with the Zeuxis who was satrap of Lydia

between 201 and 190 B.C.9

          An explanation of Antiochus III's belief that Babylonian Jews

were the kind of settlers who would help stabilize disaffected

areas of his empire may perhaps be provided in an enigmatic

allusion in 2 Maccabees 8:20. There Judas Maccabaeus is said to

have encouraged his troops on one occasion, when they were

threatened by a much superior army, by reminding them of "the

battle with the Galatians that took place in Babylonia, when

8,000 in all went into the affair, with 4,000 Macedonians; and

when the Macedonians were hard pressed, the 8,000, by the help

that came to them from heaven, destroyed 120,000 and took

much booty." This tradition, which has doubtless lost nothing in

the telling (particularly with regard to the numbers on the oppos-

 


                    Jews and Christians in the Lycus valley                  5

 

ing side), probably refers to the earlier part of the reign of Anti-

ochus III. The Galatians habitually hired out their services as

mercenaries; presumably on this occasion Galatian mercenaries

were engaged on the side of some of Antiochus' enemies. The help

then given him by Babylonian Jews could well have moved him to

settle a number of them in Phrygia and Lydia to safeguard his

interests in those territories.

          The political changes by which the Lycus Valley passed suc-

cessively under the rule of Pergamum and Rome made little

difference to the Jews who resided there. Even the overrunning

of proconsular Asia by Mithridates in 88 B.C., and the ensuing 25

years' war, did not seriously disturb them. Almost immediately

after the end of the Mithridatic war evidence points to a large and

prosperous Jewish population in the Lycus Valley and the neigh-

boring parts of Phrygia.

          In 62 B.C. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, proconsul of Asia, im-

pounded the proceeds of the annual half-shekel tax which the

Jews of his province, in common with male Jews 20 years of age

and older throughout the world, contributed for the mainte-

nance of the temple in Jerusalem. His action was in line with the

official ban on the export of gold and silver from the Roman

Empire to foreign countries. But it may well be that by use and

custom, if not by senatorial decree, an exception was made in

respect to the Jewish temple tax; and in any case it could be

argued that from 63 B.C. Judea itself was part of the empire and

no longer counted as a foreign country. Flaccus was brought to

court in 59 B.C. on a charge of acting illegally in the matter; he was

defended by Cicero, whose speech for the defense has been

preserved.10  Cicero claimed that the province was being impover-

ished by the export of so much wealth year by year; therefore he

may have exaggerated in his estimate of the sums of money

involved.

          However that may be, he stated that at Apamea gold amount-

ing to just under 100 Roman pounds had been impounded: at

Laodicea, just over 20 pounds. At that time the Pompeian stan-

dard of 36 aurei (gold denarii) to the gold pound (libra) was in

force, and the aureus was reckoned to be equivalent to 25 drach-

mae or denarii. Therefore it has been calculated that nearly

45,000 half-shekels (didrachma) were collected at Apamea, and

over 9,000 at Laodicea.11 This does not mean that there were

'respectively 45,000 and 9,000 male Jews of the appropriate age

resident at Apamea and Laodicea; these cities were centers to

 


6       Bibliotheca Sacra--January-March 1984

 

which the money collected in the surrounding districts was

brought for conversion into more manageable form and eventual

dispatch to Judea. But even when allowance is made for some

exaggeration, the Jewish population of Phrygia was consider-

able.

          Later in the same century the collection and export of the

half-shekel were expressly authorized in successive decrees of

Julius Caesar and Augustus.12 Augustus' right-hand man Mar-

cus Vipsanius Agrippa took specific measures in 14 B.C. (at the

request of Herod the Great) to protect the Jews of Asia Minor

against interference with this privilege (and also against being

compelled to appear in law courts on the Sabbath day).13

          Josephus quotes a letter sent by the magistrates of Laodicea

about 45 B.C. to a Roman official, probably the proconsul of Asia,

confirming that, in accordance with his directions, they would

not impede Jewish residents in the observance and other prac-

tices of their religion.14 In A.D. 2/3 Augustus issued a full state-

ment of Jewish rights in that part of the empire; it was posted up

in Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia.15

          After the end of the second Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70

the Jews of the dispersion continued to enjoy their privileges,

apart from the diversion of the half-shekel tax to the temple of

Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. There is documentary evidence for

the maintenance of their privileges in Alexandria16 and Syrian

Antioch;17 the situation was probably no different elsewhere in

the eastern provinces. Ramsay thought that evidence for a specif-

ic provision safeguarding Jewish privileges at Apamea was to be

found in a tomb inscription of the third century A.D. directing

that no one was to be buried in the tomb except its owner and his

wife. "If any one acts [contrary to this direction]," the inscription

concludes, "he knows the law of the Jews."18 Ramsay inferred at

one time that "the law of the Jews" here invoked could not be the

Mosaic Law but was a local regulation registered with the city

authorities, protecting the burial privileges of the Jewish

community.19 This is possible; but two Jewish tomb inscriptions

of the mid-third century, from Blaundos and Akmonia, in west-

central Phrygia, threaten the violator with "the curses written in

Deuteronomy" (presumably in Deut. 28:15-68),20 so "the law of

the Jews" in the Apamea inscription could very well be the Mosaic

Law. (A similar inscription from Hierapolis, dated around A.D.

200, stipulates that for any unauthorized burial in the tomb a

fine must be paid to the Jewish community in that city.21)

 


                    Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley                 7

 

          From a comparative study of Greek inscriptions in Phrygia,

Ramsay deduced that the Jewish communities of that region

were marked by a degree of religious laxity exceptional in the

diaspora — that members of Jewish families could combine the

office (or at least the title) of a]rxisuna<gwgoj with responsible

participation in pagan cults.22 The evidence is not unambiguous;

his deductions depended at times on his identification of the

bearers of certain family names as Jews just because they bore

those names. From an inscription in Akmonia, Ramsay quoted a

reference to one Julia Severa who was honored by the local

synagogue23 and was mentioned on local coins of Nero, Agrippina

(the younger), and Poppaea as having held municipal office

together with her husband Servenius Capito (say, between A.D.

54 and 65).24 It was difficult to hold such office without at least

some involvement in local cults, not to mention the imperial cult.

But Julia Severa appears to have been a descendant of Herod,25

and members of the Herod family were not typical Jews.

          On the inscription which mentions Julia Severa refer-

ence is made to one Gaius Tyrronius Cladus as a life-long

a]rxisuna<gwgoj. Ramsay judged that "the strange name Tyrro-

nius . . . may in all cases be taken as Jewish, "26 and went on to

draw inferences of doubtful cogency from its other inscriptional

occurrences — a course which he himself admitted to be one "of

speculation and uncertainty, where each step is more slippery

than the preceding one."27  Some outward conformity with pagan

customs on the part of influential Jews in Phrygia may be taken

as established; but it would be precarious to draw conclusions

from this about forms of syncretism that might be reflected in

the beliefs and practices deprecated in Paul's Epistle to the

Colossians.

          The influence of the Jewish settlements in Phrygia on the

folklore of the region is well illustrated at Apamea, where the

story of Noah was taken over as a local cult legend, to the point

where the Septuagint word for "ark" (Kibwto<j) appears as an

alternative name for the city. Probably a local flood legend was

there already, before Jewish settlement in the area began, but

under Jewish influence it was merged with the Flood narrative of

Genesis. On Apamean coins of the third century A.D. there

appears an ark with the inscription Nw?e (the Septuagintal form

of Noah's name), floating on water; in it are two human figures,

while two others, a man and a woman, stand beside it; on top is a

raven and above it a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Two

 


8        Bibliotheca Sacra—January-March 1984

 

phases of the story are thus represented: in one, Noah and his

wife are in the ark; in the other, they are on dry land beside the

ark, thanking God for their preservation.28

          This Phrygian setting for the story of Noah is recorded in the

Sibylline Oracles (1. 261-65): "In the land of Phrygia is the steep

tapering mountain of Kelaine, called Ararat, from which springs

of the great Marsyas well forth. The ark remained on the peak of

that height when the waters abated." The River Marsyas or

Catarrhactes (modern Dinar-su) rises in a recess under the

acropolis of ancient Celaenae; it flows through Apamea (modern

Dinar), on the outskirts of which it falls into the Maeander.

Evidently the Sibylline author identified Ararat with the acropolis

of Celaenae.

 

                              Christianity in Phrygia

 

PHRYGIA IN THE APOSTOLIC ERA

          The inclusion of Phrygia among the places from which pil-

grims came to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost after Jesus'

death and resurrection (Acts 2:10) may be designed to prepare

the reader for the eventual evangelization of that region.29

Whether that is so or not, the gospel came to Phrygia within a

quarter of a century from that date. In Phrygia Galatica ("the

Phrygian and Galatian region" of Acts 16:6) the cities of Pisidian

Antioch and Iconium — "the last (easternmost) city of Phrygia,"

as Xenophon calls it30 — were evangelized by Barnabas and Paul

in A.D. 47 or 48 (Acts 13:14-14:4). Phrygia Asiana farther west,

including the Lycus Valley, was evangelized a few years later,

during Paul's Ephesian ministry, when "all who lived in Asia

heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19:10).

          The Lycus Valley was not evangelized by Paul himself; it is

plain from Colossians 2:1 that he was not personally acquainted

with the churches there. He had certainly met individual mem-

bers of those churches such as Philemon, who indeed appears to

have been one of his converts (that is the natural sense of his

reminder to him in Phile. 19, "you owe to me even your own self").

The preaching of the gospel and planting of churches in the Lycus

Valley were evidently the work of Epaphras, whom Paul calls his

"fellow bond-servant" (Col. 1:7) and "fellow-prisoner" (Phile. 23).

          Possibly when Paul journeyed overland from the east to

Ephesus to embark on his ministry there in A.D. 52 he went by

way of the Lycus Valley. When Luke wrote that Paul arrived at

Ephesus after passing through "the upper country" (lit., "the

 


                               Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley                9

 

upper parts," a]nwterika> me<rh; Acts 19:1), Luke may have meant

the Lycus route. Any district up country could be called "the

upper parts" from the standpoint of Ephesus and the Aegean

shore. But it has commonly been thought more probable that he

went by a higher road farther north, which left the Lycus route at

Apamea and approached Ephesus on the north of Mount Messo-

gis, not on the south of it (as the Lycus road did).31

          A reasonable inference from Luke's account is that, while

Paul's personal headquarters were in Ephesus during the years

of the evangelizing of proconsular Asia, his fellow workers were

active in other parts of the province (such as Epaphras in the

Lycus Valley). Probably all seven of the "churches of Asia" to

which the Johannine Apocalypse was addressed, as well as other

Asian churches, were planted during that fertile period.32

          The only direct information in the New Testament about

Christianity in the Lycus Valley is contained in Paul's letters to

the Colossians and to Philemon, and in the letter to the Laodi-

cean church (Rev. 3:14-22). The passage in Revelation 3 suggests

that the churches of the Lycus Valley shared the general prosper-

ity of their environment; the cutting edge of their distinctive

Christian witness was accordingly blunted. Among various

touches of local color in the letter to Laodicea maybe included the

lukewarmness for which the church is rebuked. By contrast with

the medicinal hot springs of Hierapolis or the refreshing supply

of cold water available at Colossae, Laodicea had to fetch its water

through high-pressure stone pipes from Denizli, some five miles

distant, and by the time it reached Laodicea it was lukewarm.

Perhaps, like the water which the villagers of Ecirli are reported

as drawing today from the hot springs of Pamukkale (Hierapolis),

it had to be left standing in stone jars until it cooled.33

          The churches of Laodicea and Colossae evidently had free

communication; the cities stood 10 miles apart, on opposite

banks of the Lycus. Paul directed the Colossian Christians to

send on his letter to the Laodicean church when they themselves

had read it, and to make sure that in exchange they received and

read the "letter from Laodicea" (Col. 4:16). This "letter from

Laodicea" may be said to constitute a "Colossian problem" in

itself, but no solution to it is to be offered here. The letter has

been identified with one or another of the letters to the Ephe-

sians, to Philemon, and to the Hebrews. One of these identifica-

tions may be right, or all may be wrong. It is not even certain that

the letter in question was written by Paul. If he had sent a letter to

 


10       Bibliotheca Sacra—January-March 1984

 

the Laodicean church about that time, why should he have used

the Epistle to the Colossians to send greetings to "the brethren

who are in Laodicea" (Col. 4:15), including the members of a

named house church?34

          Again, why is Paul's message to Archippus given immediate-

ly after the apostle referred to Laodicea? Is it because Archippus'

ministry was to be exercised in the Laodicean church? Perhaps it

was; if so, has this any bearing on the mention of his name in

Philemon 2, where Paul calls him "our fellow-soldier"? To put

flesh on these bare bones calls for a measure of creative imagina-

tion with which this writer has not been endowed.35 This at least

may be said: the churches of the Lycus Valley were full of vitality,

involved in one another's life and witness.

          The later references in the New Testament to the churches of

Asia leave them under a cloud. In Paul's address at Miletus to the

elders of the Ephesian church he warned them of times of trouble

ahead, trouble caused not only by hostile assaults from outside

but also by false teachers within (Acts 20:29-30). That these

forebodings were well founded is evident from 2 Timothy 1:15,

where "all who are in Asia" are said to have turned away from

Paul, that is, presumably, from the purity of the gospel. One need

not suppose that the churches of the Lycus Valley were exempt

from this unfavorable report. The apocalyptic letter to the church

of Laodicea suggests that they were not.

 

PHRYGIA IN THE POST-APOSTOLIC ERA

          Happily the faith of the Asian churches, including the Lycus

churches, was revived in the latter part of the first century by the

immigration of some Palestinian believers whose association

with the Christian movement went back to early days. Among

these were Philip and at least some of his four prophesying

daughters, whose tombs were pointed out at Hierapolis toward

the end of the second century.36 There is some confusion in

Eusebius or his sources between Philip the apostle and Philip the

evangelist. The reference is probably to Philip the evangelist,

with whom Paul and his companions spent several days at

Caesarea in A.D. 57 before completing their journey to Jerusalem

to hand over the Gentile churches' gifts to the mother church

(Acts 21:8-14). Not surprisingly in due course a church was

dedicated in Philip's honor at Hierapolis.37 Of later date (the fifth

century) is the octagonal Martyrion of Philip, substantial ruins of

which still stand above the city, outside the walls.

 


                 Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley              11

 

          In the first half of the second century the bishop of Hierapolis

was Papias,38 contemporary with Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna)

and one who, like Polycarp, heard in his younger days of "John

the disciple of the Lord.”39 Even if Papias' intelligence was as

small as Eusebius reckoned is to be (probably quoting Papias'

depreciation of himself),41 the loss of his volumes of Exegesis of

the Dominical Oracles is to be greatly regretted. Whatever might

be the historical value of the remnants of oral tradition which he

scraped together in these volumes, it would be interesting to

know what they were.

          Another bishop of Hierapolis, in the latter half of the second

century, was Claudius Apollinaris, who about A.D. 172 presented

a treatise in defense of the Christian faith to the Emperor Marcus

Aurelius. This treatise is lost, as are also other works of his

including five volumes of Against the Greeks, two volumes of

Against the Jews, two volumes of On the Truth, and one or more

treatises against the Montanists.41

          The Montanists arose in Phrygia soon after the middle of the

second century. Their leader, Montanus, prophesied that the

new Jerusalem would soon descend from heaven and take up its

location near Pepouza, a city about 30 miles north of the Lycus

Valley, between the Maeander and the Senaros.42 From its place

of origin Montanism was known in other parts of the Christian

world as the Phrygian heresy. But despite the vigor of Montan-

ism, orthodoxy was far from dying out in Phrygia.

          As for Colossae, it apparently retained its importance into

the second and third centuries. The city itself stood on the south

bank of the Lycus, but its necropolis was situated on the north

bank. On the north bank, too, was later erected the Byzantine

church of Saint Michael the Archistrategos, fated to be destroyed

by Turkish raiders in 1189. According to Ramsay, its ruins were

still "plainly visible in 1881."43 It remained the religious center of

the district even after the population of Colossae moved to Cho-

nai, the modern village of Honaz, two or three miles farther

south, at the foot of Mount Cadmus. (Since the site of Colossae

remains unoccupied, it presents an inviting prospect to

archaeologists.)

          It has been suggested that the angel worship, which, accord-

ing to Colossians 2:18, was one aspect of the "Colossian heresy,"

reflected a local tendency which persisted for centuries. Ramsay

quoted from the commentary of Theodoretus on that verse and

from Canon 35 of the Synod of Laodicea words which indicate

 


12      Bibliotheca Sacra—January-March 1984

 

that the practice of praying to angels was maintained for some

centuries by Phrygian and Pisidian Christians in face of official

ecclesiastical prohibition.44 At a still later date this practice,

which had once been condemned as idolatrous, came to be reck-

oned as piety in the form of the veneration of the archangel

Michael, who was credited from the ninth century onward with

being the author of a natural phenomenon in the vicinity of

Colossae, "the miracle at Khonai," as Ramsay called it.45  But it is

most improbable that the practices which incurred the dis-

approval of the Synod of Laodicea and of Theodoretus bore any

direct relationship to those deplored by Paul in his Letter to the

Colossians.

          Laodicea probably profited by John's severe words addressed

to the resident Christians (Rev. 3:14-22). Evidence of spiritual

life was there for several centuries to come. Similarly, according

to the testimony of Ignatius, the church of Ephesus had recov-

ered a good measure of its first love by the time he passed through

proconsular Asia on his way to martyrdom in Rome about A.D.

110.46 (It is not clear whether Ignatius' military escort took the

road through the Lycus Valley or the higher road which forked

right at Apamea and ran north of Mount Messogis. If they went

through the Lycus Valley, they would have turned north at

Laodicea, passing through Hierapolis and going on to Phil-

adelphia and Smyrna by the road taken by Xerxes and his army

nearly six centuries earlier. Ignatius made no mention in his

letters of any city through which he passed before his arrival at

Philadelphia.)

          In the centuries immediately following, the secular promi-

nence of Laodicea increased; it was the principal city of Western

Phrygia and had metropolitan status. Its ecclesiastical status

matched its secular importance; its bishop ranked highest

among the bishops of Phrygia. A church synod was held there

about A.D. 363, but hardly anything is known of its proceedings

apart from the 60 "Canons of Laodicea" which it promulgated.

(The 60th of these, a list of the canonical books of Scripture, may

be of later date.) Several of these rules were probably restate-

ments of decisions reached at earlier church councils, but they

were acknowledged by later councils as a basis of canon law.

          The excavations carried out on the site of Laodicea between

1961 and 1963, under the sponsorship of Laval University,

Quebec, uncovered some relics of early Christianity in the city.

The most impressive discovery was of a Nymphaeum, a shrine of

 


              Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley                    13

 

the nymphs, with public fountains. After its destruction by an

earthquake late in the fifth century this building was repaired for

use as a Christian meeting place, as is evident from the Christian

symbols which now decorated it.47

          The site was abandoned in the wake of Turkish invasions of

the 13th century; its place as the political center of the region was

taken by Denizli. But Christianity survived in the Lycus Valley,

as in many other parts of Asia Minor, until 1923. The Treaty of

Lausanne, which ended the Greco-Turkish war of 1922-23,

made provision for the wholesale exchange of the Greek residents

in Turkey (apart from Constantinople) and the Turkish residents

in Greece. When the exchange of populations took place, it was

carried through effectively on a religious basis. Greek-speaking

Muslims in Greece were counted as Turks and transferred to

Turkey; Turkish-speaking Christians in Turkey were counted as

Greeks and transferred to Greece. A removal of ancient lamp-

stands on this scale, however intelligible it may be in terms of

international politics, must be deplored as a tragedy by anyone

with a sense of Christian history.

 

                                        Editor's Note

 

            This is the first in a series of four articles delivered by the author as the W. H.

Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, November

1-4, 1983.

                                               Notes

 

1 In addition to the Phrygian Lycus (modern Curuk-su) there was one in Lydia

(modern Kum Cayi) and one in Pontus (modern Kelkit Cayi).

2 Herodotus Histories 7.30.

3 "Sepharad" in Ob. 20, like Akkadian Sapardu and Old Persian Sfarda, is

probably an approximation to the Lydian name of the city.

4 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 12.119.

5 Ibid., 12.125.

6 Ibid., 12.149.

7 M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1951), 1:492. See also, to the same effect, A. Schalit,

The Letter of Antiochus III to Zeuxis regarding the Establishment of Jewish

Military Colonies in Phrygia and Lydia," Jewish Quarterly Review 50 (1959—60):

289-318. (He dates the letter between 212 and 205 B.C.)

8 Polybius History 5.45ff.

9 Ibid., 12.1, 24; 21.16, 24.

10 Cicero Pro Flacco. (Flaccus seems to have been acquitted.)

11 Pro Flacco 68. See A. J. Marshall, "Flaccus and the Jews of Asia (Pro .Flacco

28.67-69)," Phoenix 29 (1975): 139-54.

12 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 16.162-63; Philo, Legation to Gaius

155-57.

 


14      Bibliotheca Sacra—January-March 1984

 

13 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 16.27-65.

14 Ibid., 14.241-43.

15 Ibid., 16.162-65. On this whole matter see E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under

Roman Rule (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 120-43.

16 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 12.121.

17 Josephus The Jewish Wars 7.100-111. Also see Smallwood, The Jews under

Roman Rule, pp. 358-68.

18 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, vol. 2, ed. J. B. Frey (Rome: Pontificio

Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1952), no. 774.

19 William M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1897), 2:538, 669.

20 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 760; Monumenta Asiae Minoris

Antiqua, vol. 6, eds. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1939), nos. 335, 335a.

21 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 775.

22 But there is evidence that the title of a]rxisuna<gwgoj could be held by a

Gentile, the president of a non-Jewish assembly (see New Documents Illustrating

Early Christianity. ed. G. H. R. Horsley [North Ryde, New South Wales: Ancient

History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1981 ], No 5).

23 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 766.

24 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2:649-50.

25 Cf. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 479. In Corpus Inscrip-

tionum Graecarum, vol. 3, ed. A. Boeckh (Berlin: Reimer, 1853), no. 4033, one

member of the family from Upper Phrygia, Tiberius Severus, is called "descendant

of kings and tetrarchs."

26 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2:650.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., 2:669-72.

29 Luke's list of places differs sufficiently from similar lists which have been

compared to his to suggest that he did not take it over as such from some literary

source (astrological or otherwise) but was himself responsible for the selection (see

Bruce M. Metzger, "Ancient Astrological Geography and Acts 2:9-11," New

Testament Studies [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980], pp. 46-56).

30 Xenophon Anabasis 1.2.19.

31 See William M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170

(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), p. 94. It is less likely that "the upper

parts" should be taken as resumptive of "the Galatian region and Phrygia"

through which Paul is said to have passed on his westward journey in Acts 18:23.

32 It has sometimes been inferred from Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians

(11:3) that the gospel first came to Smyrna after Paul had written Philippians

4:15. But more probably, when Polycarp said, "we [the Smyrnaeans] had not yet

known God," he referred not to the time when Paul's Epistle to the Philippians was

written but to the time when Philippi was first evangelized. "We need have no

hesitation in dating the origin of the Christian church in Smyrna. at some point

within the period 53-56" (C. J. Cadoux, Ancient Smyrna [Oxford: Blackwell,

1938], p. 310.

33 Cf. G. Weber. "Die Hochdruck-Wasserleitung von Laodicea ad Lycum," Jahr-

buch des kaiserlich-deutschen archaologischen Institute 13 (1898): 1-13; 19

(1904):95-96; M. J. S. Rudwick and E. M. B. Green, "The Laodicean Lukewarm-

ness," Expository Times 69 (1957-58):176-78.

34 C. P. Anderson suggested that Epaphras was the author ("Who Wrote 'The

Epistle from Laodicea'?" Journal of Biblical Literature 85 [1966]: 436-40). Later,

Anderson suggested its identification with Hebrews ("Hebrews among the Letters

of Paul," Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 5 [1975–761: 258-66).


                Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley            15

 

35 It is no disparagement of a scholarly work to remark that John Knox's

Philemon among the Letters of Paul (London: Collins, 1960) gives evidence of

such endowment.

36 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3.31.2-5; 3.39.9; 5.24.2, quoting Polycrates

of Ephesus and Proclus the Montanist.

37 An inscription of Hierapolis commemorates one "Eugenius the little,

archdeacon and president of the holy and glorious apostle and divine, Philip" (E.

A. Gardner, "Inscriptions Copied by [C. R.1 Cockerell in Greece, II," Journal of

Hellenic Studies 6 [ 18851: 346; Ramsay. Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia,

2:552).

38 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 2.15.2; 3.36.2; 3.39.1-17.

39 John migrated to Asia Minor presumably about the same time as Philip and

his family; his residence at Ephesus and his death and burial there are attested by

Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 3.1.2) and Polycrates (Eusebius EccIesiasti-

cal History 3.31.3; 5.24.2). In the so-called anti-Marcionite prologue to the Gospel

of John, Papias appears to be called "John's dear disciple." Irenaeus affirms that

Papias was a disciple of John (Against Heresies 5.33.4); Eusebius virtually denies

it (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.2).

40 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3.39.13; but see J. R. Harris, Testimonies

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), 1:119-20.

41 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 4.26.1; 4.27.1; 5.5.4; 5.16.1; 5.19.1-2.

42 Ibid., 5.3.4; 5.16.1–5.18.13.

43 Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895)),

1 :215. Michael is called archistrategos in both Greek versions of Daniel 8:11 and

in several Greek apocrypha.

44 The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170, p. 477.

45 Ibid., 465-80.

46 Ignatius, To the Ephesians 1:3 et passim.

47 J. des Gagniers et al., Laodicee du Lycos, Le Nymphee, Campagnes 1961–

1963, Universite Laval Recherches Archeologiques, Serie I (Quebec: Les Presses

de l'Universite Laval, 1969).

 

 

 

 

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