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THE BEARING OF RECENT DISCOVERY 
ON THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

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LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON 



The James Sprunt Lectures delivered at Union Theological 
Seminary in Virginia 



THE BEARING OF RECENT 
DISCOVERY ON THE TRUST 
WORTHINESS OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT * 



BY 

SIR W. M. RAMSAY 




HODDER AND STOUGHTON 

LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 
MCMXV 






THE JAMES SPRUNT LECTURES 

In 1911 Mr. James Sprunt of Wilmington, North Caro 
lina, gave to the Trustees of Union Theological Seminary 
in Virginia the sum of 30,000 dollars for the purpose of 
establishing a perpetual lectureship which would enable the 
institution to secure from time to time the services of dis 
tinguished ministers and authoritative scholars outside the 
regular Faculty as special lecturers on subjects connected 
with various departments of Christian thought and Christian 
work. The lecturers are chosen by the Faculty of the 
Seminary and a committee of the Board of Trustees, and 
the lectures are published after their delivery in accordance 
with a contract between the lecturer and these representa 
tives of the institution. The second series of lectures on 
this foundation, delivered by Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, 
Hon. D.C.L., Oxford; Litt.D., Cambridge ; LL.D., St. 
Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen; D.D., Edinburgh and 
New York University, 28 October to 4 November, 1913, is 
presented in this volume. 

W. W. MOORE 

President, Union Theological Seminary 
in Virginia 






PREFACE 

THE following pages have been almost wholly re 
written since the Great War began, and in one respect 
show the influence of the situation. The very exist 
ence of our country was staked on the uncertain issue ; 
and the individual could not hope or wish to survive 
the nation. I felt that this book might be my last will 
and testament, and attempted to put into it the gist 
of what I had learned in the struggle of life and the 
study of books. 

I describe no striking discoveries. My aim is to 
state certain principles that result from modern dis 
covery, and to illustrate their bearing on the New 
Testament. The method is to show through the ex 
amination, word by word and phrase by phrase, of a 
few passages, which have been much exposed to 
hostile criticism, that the New Testament is unique 
in the compactness, the lucidity, the pregnancy and 
the vivid truthfulness of its expression. That is not 
the character of one or two only of the books that 
compose the Testament : it belongs in different ways 
to all alike, though space fails in the present work to 
try them all. 

A great discovery has resulted from modern investi 
gation, viz. the wide and familiar use of writing in 
Western Asia as furnishing the basis on which the 



vi Preface. 

Roman bureaucratic administration was able to rest. 
That is really a great principle ; and yet how little is 
its importance understood ! I adhere to the inferences 
drawn in the first chapters of the i4 Letters to the 
Seven Churches " and in the paper on " The First 
Written Gospel " in " Luke the Physician and other 
Studies in the History of Religion". Yet many of 
us will wait until some German scholar has stated the 
same conclusions before accepting them. 

. The only way, the necessary and the useful method, 
is to go over the New Testament sentence by sentence, 
and to show how great principles and big ideas form 
the texture of the thought everywhere. 

Carrying out the view stated twenty years ago in 
"St. Paul the Traveller," pp. 303 to 309, I see in 
the earliest Church history the religion of freedom 
engaged in a conflict with the Imperial power. Luke 
shows the conflict beginning at Christ's birth. The 
strange situation in which He was born was caused 
by an order of Augustus, a world-wide order express 
ing a vast force that moves through many centuries 
of history and always makes for slavery. The worse 
side of Imperial policy, as embodied in that order, 
drove Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And what 
was the result? Only the fulfilment of the ancient 
truth and prophecy that in Bethlehem, the humble 
village which was the centre of old Hebrew tradition, 
there must be born, when the fulness of the time was 
come, the King of the Jews and the Saviour of the 
world. Autocracy compasses its own destruction, and 



Preface. vii 

the freedom of the Divine Will works out its perfect 
expression through the autocrat's error. 

The episodes in the first and third Gospels, describ 
ing the circumstances of the Saviour's Birth, are of the 
highest importance ; Luke sets that event in relation 
with the tides and forces of Imperial world-history ; 
and Matthew describes how the traditional wisdom of 
Asia recognized the new-born King. On the other 
hand, John says nothing about such mundane matters, 
because his thought moves on a far higher plane, and 
his eye is fixed only on the infinite Divine nature ; 
while Mark restricts himself to recounting what he 
had learned about the public career of Jesus as a 
Teacher. 

It is necessary to insist on the immense importance 
of these episodes, and to illustrate this from various 
points of-view, pp. 145 f., 248 f., 272 f. No one can 
comprehend Luke or Matthew, so long as his mind 
is clogged with the old ideas about the puerility and 
untrustworthiness of those episodes. Yet I am wrong 
in calling those ideas old ; here is what was said only 
a few years ago by one of the most distinguished and 
famous of Scottish theologians in his commentary on 
Luke's narrative, n. i f. : 

" One could almost wish that v. 2 had been omitted, 
or that there were reason to believe, as has been 
suggested by several writers, that it is a gloss that 
has found its way into the text, and that Luke is not 
responsible for it so much trouble has it given to 
commentators." 



viii Preface. 

These words were written by Dr. A. B. Bruce in 
the maturity of his career, after a life devoted to the 
exposition of the Gospels. They crystallize in a gem 
of criticism the inadequate method and the falseness 
of view, which could result in the thought that the 
convenience of the commentator should be put as a 
test of truth. 

The breadth and dignity of the ideas in the New 
Testament are such that its outlook over human 
history must be ranked on the loftiest level. For 
example : " Not merely are all the statements in Luke 
ii. 1-3 true. They are also in themselves great 
statements, presenting to us large historical facts, 
world- wide administrative measures, vast forces work 
ing on human society through the ages," see p. 304. 
Those who miss this may delude themselves with the 
fancy that the passage is a legend or an invention. 
Those who have eyes and historic sense to see 
know that nothing but truth can be so grand and so 
simple. 

In the prefaces to several books, I have referred to 
the charge brought against me of having slighted the 
opinions of the Germans. I have learned much from 
the greater German scholars in my own subject ; but 
their teaching was to judge for myself and to accept 
no man's dictum on the credit of his name and 
fame. In 1885 Mommsen spent a week in Oxford 
as my guest, and among many memories I will quote 
one : we were speaking of English translations of 
German books, and he said, " you should not translate 



Preface. ix 

our books : you ought to write history from your point 
of view : we need to see the past from your point of 
view as well as from ours". 

I do not follow the prevailing tendency of German 
criticism of the New Testament. It is wrong because 
it is narrow, and because it judges from erroneous 
premises and unjustifiable prejudices ; and one wel 
comes any signs of a return to a saner and better in 
formed judgment. Many very learned scholars have 
been blind to the grandeur of the thought. in the New 
Testament ; and the cosmic ideas which inform it 
throughout have generally passed over their heads. 
Where they dimly caught the meaning of a cosmic 
idea, they called it " eschatological ". This mirage of 
the " eschatology " of the New Testament arose from 
fettering great moral truths, expressed in terms of 
the infinite, with the precise hard and wholly in 
adequate expression of dull logical conception. 

In the few cases where questions of text are 
concerned I give no details, but simply state the 
verdict of Westcott and Hort and my own argu 
ments. No reading is adopted which they do not 
print as resting on good authority. Any one that 
wishes to go behind them ought to investigate the 
evidence for himself. It must, however, be added 
that the work of those two great scholars seems to 
me far from being final, and their method results in 
establishing the text of a fourth or late third century 
school ; but the school contained men of real learning, 
whose text was a great achievement. Now, however, 



Preface. 



it is necessary to go back behind that text to an older 
period. 

It was not easy to complete the book amid the 
many duties and the mental strain imposed by the 
Great War ; and I apologize for many deficiencies 
whose existence I dread. They will rise before me 
when it is too late. 

I owe the photographs to Lady Ramsay, and the 
indexes to the Rev. Principal Perry, Coates Hall, 
Edinburgh. It is an honour to be able to speak of 
the latter as one of my own pupils at Aberdeen. 

W. M. RAMSAY. 

24 December ; 1914. 



CONTENTS 

PART I. PRELIMINARY 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Explanation of Method and Order . . . . . 3 
II. Introductory Statement 7 



PART II. THE LECTURES 

III. The First Change of Judgment . . . -35 

IV. Iconium and the Frontier 53 

V. The Language Spoken at Iconium . . . '65 
VI. General Impression of Trustworthiness in the Acts . 79 

VII. Trial Scenes in the Acts 90 

VIII. The Magicians in the Acts of the Apostles . . . 106 

IX. Simon the Magician 117 

X. Paul and the Magicians 132 

XI. The Magi at the Birth of Jesus 140 

XII. Sergius Paullus and his Relation to Christian Faith . 150 

XIII. " Salvation " as a Pagan and a Christian Term . .173 

XIV. Prayers for Salvation among the Pagans of Asia Minor 178 
XV. The Imperial Salvation . . . . . .191 

XVI. Trustworthiness of the Acts, Chapters I. to xn. . . 199 
XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl 209 



xii Contents. 



PAGE 



XVIII. Approach to the Gospel of Luke 222 

XIX. Luke's Account of the First Census . . . .238 

XX. The Augustan Census- System 255 

XXI. When Quirinius was Governing Syria. . . .275 
XXII. Analogies and Fulfilment of Prophecy . . . .301 

XXIII. "Your Poets have said" 319 

PART III, ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 

XXIV. The Old Testament in the Roman Phrygia . . . 353 
XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke .... 370 

XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia 385 

XXVII. The Pauline Churches in the Third Century . .412 

INDEXES: I. Passages quoted 423 

2. Personal Names 424 

3. Geographical Names . . . .425 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PLATES 

TO FACE PAGE 

I. Basis of the first statue erected in Pisidian Antioch, prob 
ably 8 B.C., in honour of Caristanius, prsefectus of Qui- 
rinius, honorary duumvir of the Colony while governor 
of Syria . . 285 

II. Blassius Nigellio, a speculator of the Legion VII. Claudia, 
travelling with his servant. A third horse is loosely 
harnessed to the car to ensure speed (Belgrad) . . 315 

III. Two gravestones from Blaundos, now at Ushak . . -358 

IV. Part of the outer wall of the Sanctuary on the mountain 

over Pisidian Antioch 374 



CUTS IN THE TEXT 

FIG. PAGE 

1. Tombstone in the form of an altar with epitaph in the Ico- 

nian Graeco- Phrygian patois . . . . 73 

2. In honour of Sergius Paullus 151 

3. Honour to Sergia Paulla and her husband erected by their 

son . . 154 

4. Vow to Papa MSn for salvation . . . ., .184 

5. Vow to Zeus the Thunderer for salvation . . . .186 

6. Dedication to Zeus the Thunderer on behalf of the family 

(Dorylaion) 189 

7. A Roman Courier travelling with his servant (Belgrad) . 315 

8. Epitaph mentioning Deuteronomy (Blaundos) . , -359 

xiii 



xiv List of Illustrations. 

FIG. PAGE 

9. Dedication to the God Mn by L. Tillius Crito and his wife, 
engraved on a buttress of the outer wall of the Sanctu 
ary at Pisidian Antioch 374 

10. Dedication to Men by Gamos and his family, engraved on 

the outer wall of the Sanctuary at Pisidian Antioch . 378 

11. Dedication to Men by Gamos and his family, engraved on 

the outer wall of the Sanctuary at Pisidian Antioch . 379 

Map . . .64 



PART I. PRELIMINARY 



CHAPTER I 

EXPLANATION OF METHOD AND ORDER 

HISTORICAL criticism is subject to great variety of judgment. 
With obviously equal honesty some critics will praise the 
trustworthiness of an authority whom others decry as pre 
judiced and utterly untrustworthy. Even in regard to an 
author who is so carefully and so dispassionately studied as 
Thucydides, the most contradictory opinions are maintained. 
Most scholars regard him as the greatest of historians and 
a model of impartial judgment and dispassionate statement, 
but a few go to the opposite extreme, and pronounce him a 
skilful perverter of historical truth. 

It is therefore not to be wondered at that, in a sphere where 
the feelings of mankind are deeply engaged, where opposing 
emotions and tendencies are concerned, and where dis 
passionate consideration is hardly practicable as is the 
case in the domain of religion similar diversity of opinion 
should reign in an equal or greater degree. Hence the long 
dispute about the trustworthiness of the New Testament, 
and about the authenticity of the books contained in it. 
Did Luke write the Acts of the Apostles, and, if so, can 
what he says there be accepted as trustworthy ? l Such is 
the character of the problem ; and many on both sides of 
the discussion seem to enter on it with their minds already 

1 It may, of course, be taken for granted that, if Luke did not write the 
Acts, it could not possibly be accepted. The case for belief rests on his 
personality. 

(3) 



/. Order and Method. 



made up on crucial questions and with their feelings deeply 
stirred. 

As the variety of opinions in these typical cases proves, 
arguments regarding the trustworthiness of the ancient 
authors generally cannot be dissociated from a certain ele 
ment of subjectivity, and made purely scientific. Human 
beings always have judged and will judge diversely in such 
matters, according to their varying idiosyncrasy, and will 
come to opposite conclusions on the same evidence. Even 
about contemporary history, where the facts in their super 
ficial outlines are known and admitted, diametrically op 
posite judgments are pronounced by skilled and educated 
onlookers. Taking the verbatim report of a speech delivered 
on any question of public affairs, some will condemn it as 
trifling with truth and glossing over the facts, while others 
praise it as an impartial and correct statement of the critical 
points in the case. People decide in accordance with their 
predilections and prejudices, and in general one could tell 
beforehand which of one's acquaintances would praise the 
speech and which would condemn it. 

We must therefore frankly acknowledge that a thor 
oughly scientific character cannot be given to the present 
or to any similar argument regarding historical trustworthi 
ness ; the same reasoning which convinces one, will fail to 
convince another; each reader will estimate according to 
his own character, and every statement of the argument 
will vary according to the quality of the writer. On this 
account it seems better to give to these lectures a form 
that is in accordance with the elementary conditions of 
the case. The personal qualities of the author must in 
fluence his statement of the reasoning. Let us admit at the 
outset the subjective element in the present treatment of 
this subject. The case is stated as it appears to the writer, 



/. Order and Method. 



and others will judge for themselves; but it seems then 
necessary to premise a statement regarding his bent and 
attitude of mind, so that readers may be in a position to 
judge what allowance to make for his prejudices and pro 
clivities and personal bias. The writer, of course, cannot 
describe his own personal quality ; and yet the readers, if 
any be found, ought to have in their hands some means of 
gauging and correcting the reasoning according to his 
tendencies. 

While it would obviously be impossible for him to 
make any useful estimate of his own character and bias, 
it is possible to mention the stages in the growth of the 
plan which guides the writer's work, keeping the statement 
as objective as can be ; and this is attempted in the following 
chapter. Such an attempt must, from its nature, be per 
sonal, and may be condemned by some or by many as 
impertinent and egotistical. Those who so judge are 
begged to omit the rest of the introduction, and proceed to 
Part II, where the course of lectures begins. Some, who 
are likely to be in sympathy with the method that governs 
the book as a whole, will find that the introduction is an 
essential part of it. 1 

In the main part of the book there is no attempt to 
follow a strictly scientific order, because, as has just been 
said, the subject is not susceptible of strictly scientific treat - 

1 The following chapter was not part of the actual lectures, but was 
given as an explanatory statement in a different place. People frequently 
asked how it had come about that I had been exploring in Asiatic Turkey 
for thirty-four years ; what first led me there ? what made me continue to go 
there? It seemed unusual that a teacher in a Scottish University should 
spend much of every year's vacation in Asiatic Turkey. In trying to answer 
the question I came to see that it was entirely pertinent, and was prompted 
by a right instinct of intelligent curiosity; the answer is an integral and 
proper part of the book. 



/. Order and Method. 



ment. It must partake of the author's personality ; and 
therefore the order followed is the order of discovery, i.e. 
the order of the growth of opinion and belief in an indi 
vidual mind. The introductory chapter states the growth 
of opinion in the same mind from an earlier point, and 
makes the later stage of life and work more intelligible and 
the writer's prejudice more easily estimated ; but nothing 
is described unless it seems to have in some degree formed 
the judgment and determined the opinions of later life. 

A certain idea of work and plan of life took possession of 
my mind at an early age. The idea was at first vague and 
misty. It did not control my life, because it was unformed 
and therefore weak. The stages by which it grew were not 
determined by me ; they were forced on me in the struggle 
of life ; and they can be described as they arose. 

Sometimes it will be necessary to dwell at some length 
on a slight and apparently trivial incident, because it proved 
to be typical and determinative in the future : especially is 
that the case with the genesis of the idea. Often an interval 
of several years offers nothing worth recording in this view : 
the purpose did not apparently develop during that time or 
become clearer ; rather it seemed to recede and fade away, 
and if external circumstances had been unfavourable, or the 
indwelling desire weaker, it might have died. Yet it was 
always there beneath the surface, waiting for the favourable 
moment where outward conditions should give it strength. 



CHAPTER II 

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 

IN March, 1868, at the end of my second year at the Uni 
versity of Aberdeen, I was feeling every day that college 
work had been an unalloyed happiness, and every moment 
spent in class-work or in preparation a delight. Even the 
details of syntax and word-formation had their fascination, 
and the inflection of the Greek verb was interesting. True, we 
never passed one throughout two years of class-work with 
out some student being called on to conjugate it, though years 
before I entered college I could and did often write out the 
parts of every common verb without an error, and the best 
of my class-fellows I do not doubt had done the same. Yet 
the unexpectedness of the parts made this work like voyag 
ing on an unknown sea : in that primitive period no ex 
planation was given us how those strange vagaries were all 
obedient to more deep-lying laws ; but one was vaguely 
beginning to feel that some hidden principle lay under the 
apparent caprice. 

The idea was simmering unconsciously in my mind that 
scholarship was the life for me : not the life of teaching, 
which was repellent, but the life of discovery. Why should 
I not continue to voyage on that adventurous sea, where 
one always as it were had one's life in one's hand, where 
no slip or omission was ever pardoned, where the smallest 
fault in grammar was a deadly sin and a maximus error, 
where there was the excitement of continual exploration 

(7) 



8 //. Introductory. 



and the finding of the unknown ? Ideas of history, too, 
were beginning to shape themselves in my mind, not taken 
in cut-and-dry form from a text-book, but gathered fresh 
out of the difficulties of Sophocles and Juvenal. I was 
learning for myself out of Greek and Latin grammar and 
the sentences of great authors, that, as Plato expresses it in 
the " Theaetetus," word is spoken thought, and thought is 
unspoken word. But all was in embryo, I could not have 
told what was in my mind in those days, as we waited for 
the declaration of results in the class examinations. 

At that time in Aberdeen the prizes and places in each 
subject were not announced until the final day, when they 
were declared publicly for each of the four classes in separ 
ate session. The old class-system was still in full force, 
the same system which about 1760 was carried to Phila 
delphia and introduced into the University of Pennsylvania 
by William Smith of Aberdeen, first Provost of the Uni 
versity, 1 and which spread thence over the whole of the 
United States, being accepted by all the older Universities 
except the University of Virginia, and adopted by almost 
all the new foundations. Every student belonged to the 
class of his own year, studied the regular subjects in a 
fixed order, and passed through the curriculum among the 
same body of associates. He belonged for life to that 
' ' class," and in Aberdeen many of these classes kept up the 
custom of meeting once a year, and occasionally publishing 
a record of the fortunes of each individual. The annual 
meeting of the classes is in America associated with a public 
function of the University, and officially used as a powerful 
engine for preserving its unity and its connexion with 
former graduates. In Aberdeen the meeting remained 

1 This interesting fact of University history is given on the authority of 
the present Provost, who told the whole story to the present writer in 1913. 



II. Introductory. 



always a private gathering of any class which chose to hold 
such a re-union, and the University took no part in it and 
no notice of it. Occasionally some Professor was invited 
to the meeting, but as a rule it was purely a students' 
gathering of a single class. 

The class-system at Aberdeen, now much destroyed by 
the Royal Commission of I894, 1 was tnen a power, in 
University life and exercised a strong influence on every 
student. That was the case with us, although our class 
was one which has never held any re-union or met in any 
general fashion after the fourth year ended ; and this ex 
planation of the system is needed to explain why that 
meeting of the class to hear the declaration of the prizes 
was felt as a momentous occasion for young students. 

On the final day we of the Second Year gathered in the 
Latin class-room. The feeling was in my mind that 
morning that something determining was going to happen : 
I rose with a vague anticipation of some event, and walked 
with a dreamy half-consciousness of an impending change. 
The subjects in the Second Year were a class of mathe 
matics, two distinct classes of Greek, and two of Latin. 
The mathematical declaration put me fourth, Greek twice 
first, and . Latin the same. The Professor of Greek, who 
knew every student by face and position, glanced round the 
room before beginning to read his list, until he saw me ; 
and as I caught his eye, I knew before he spoke that I was 

1 Royal Commissions rarely do the good that might be expected ; but that 
of 1890-94 was peculiarly unsuccessful. Hardly any member of it had been 
educated at a Scottish University, or showed any sympathy with the national 
tradition of college life ; and Aberdeen was represented on the board of fifteen 
by a retired professor, eighty years of age, who lived far away in his own 
country, and knew the University only during his very efficient professoriate. 
The students now still struggle to maintain the old custom in spite of adverse 
circumstances. 



io //. Introductory. 



the outstanding figure in his mind. The Professor of Latin 
mentioned that I stood apart in the list. In that room 
my life was determined : I formed the resolve to be a 
scholar, and to make everything else subservient to that 
purpose and that career. 

In the class-room, also, one other matter settled itself 
The border-land between Greece and the East, the relation 
of Greek literature to Asia, had already a vague fascination 
for me ; and this was to be the direction of the life that I 
imagined in the future. As it has turned out, that thought of 
the relation between Greece and the East was an anticipation 
of my life ; but the form developed in a way that I did not 
imagine until many years passed. I thought of work in a 
room or a library, but it has lain largely in the open air 
and on the geographical frontier where Greek-speaking 
people touched the East. I thought of Greek literature in 
its relation to Asia ; but the subject widened into the rela 
tion between the spirit of Europe and of Asia through the 
centuries. 

The difficulties in this career I did not count, because I 
could not know them. How was one to live ? I knew 
enough to judge that theionly path lay in an Oxford Fellow 
ship. That was arranged before the meeting ended, and 
always was before my mind in the following two years, but 
it was never mentioned to my most intimate friends. I 
was intended by my family to compete for an appointment 
in the Indian Civil Service ; and, as instability was a 
deadly sin in the eyes of some of my relatives, I did not 
speak of the change. For the time, the ordinary Aberdeen 
course was the path to either goal ; and the new plan was 
not spoken of at home, until the end of the curriculum in 
March, 1871. Then there was strong disapproval, not in 
my mother's household, but outside, for many thought it 



//. Introductory. 1 1 



foolish to turn to an Oxford course with its vague un 
certainties. That path was then untrodden, though it has 
become a common one since for Aberdeen students. 

A scholarship was necessary ; and as I was now over 
twenty, the limit at that time in most Oxford Colleges, 1 
opportunities were few. I had only one acquaintance at 
Oxford, who recommended me to enter for an exhibition at 
his own College, New, where nothing would be open till 
the following spring, 1872, and I spent a year in apparent 
idleness. It might have been more profitably spent : but I 
had no advisers, and muddled on in my own ignorant 
fashion. 

In March, 1872, it chanced that the University Intellig 
ence in the " Times," which I read every day in the public 
Reading-room, contained one Friday an " amended 
notice " issued by St. John's College : one of the two 
scholarships previously announced for competition was now 
stated to be open without age-limit. Here was an opening. 
The examination began on the ensuing Monday at 9 A.M. 
in the College Hall, and names with proper documents had 
to reach the President not later than Saturday. There was 
barely half-an-hour to catch the mail ; I posted a letter from a 
shop, saying that the needed documents would be sent later ; 
and then went to the rooms of an intimate college friend 
to discuss whether or not I should risk the journey. He 
confirmed my wavering resolution. My name and all the 
proper documents were already in the hands of the Warden 
of New College, where the competition was to begin a week 
later ; but my friend undertook to procure copies, while I 
packed and started for Oxford, a long journey at that time. 
I arrived on Sunday at 1.30 P.M.; had lunch, found the 

1 In some the age was nineteen, as it soon afterwards was fixed generally. 



12 II. Introductory. 



Post Office and the College, and returned to my hotel, 
where I slept as one sleeps after spending twenty-two hours 
in the train. 

One of the Fellows at St. John's took some interest in 
me ; and on Thursday at the end of the paper-work 1 learned 
that the scholarship lay between a man from Trinity College, 
Dublin, and myself, and that the loser would be offered an 
Exhibition of almost equal value, created for the occasion. 
The decision was made on Saturday morning on viva voce 
translation at sight ; this was my strong point at any time, 
but in the elation of success after a tedious year I could 
have made something of Lycophron at sight, and Aristotle, 
an author new to me, seemed simple. 

A thing that impressed me was that my New College 
friend chanced to meet me in the street after the final test ; 
and when I told him what had happened, he explained that it 
was fortunate he had not known, as he would have warned 
me not to try at St. John's, because this Trinity man (whom 
he knew by reputation) was considered certain of anything 
he might try for in Oxford ; if St. John's had remembered 
in time about the unlimited nature of that single scholarship 
(which was open only once in five years), my adviser (by 
whom I was in this matter guided absolutely) would have 
prevented me from trying. My competitor came to St. 
John's, took his First, and soon afterwards was made 
Principal of a colonial University. 

The importance of this scholarship lay in its size (100 
a year as compared with 60 at New), in its tenure for a 
fifth year, which as things turned out was invaluable for 
me, and in the free position that it gave me. At New they 
would have dosed me with teaching, for which I was too 
mature; and I should have grown sick of college work. 
At St. John's they let me alone to take my own course in 



//. Introductory. 13 

my own way often a wrong way, but I had to learn to 
take the chances and trust myself. With this and an 
Aberdeen graduate scholarship I was started for five years. 

Carrying out my old dream about the contact between 
Greece and the East, I began in 1874 to study Sanskrit, 
thinking that in this speech of an Aryan people who had 
melted into Asia one could best approach the historical 
problem, and spent three months at Gottingen during the 
long vacation, 1 studying with Benfey, who gave up his usual 
autumn holiday in Switzerland to continue the lessons. In 
Benfey I first came in contact with a really great scholar of 
the modern type, and learned something of German method. 
He opened to me a new world, and gave me fresh courage 
and hope, telling me that he looked to me to continue 
his work on the Rig- Veda. The way of scholarship had 
been hitherto arid in my education, the sense of dis 
covery was never quickened, and the power of perceiving 
truth was becoming atrophied. Scholarship had been a 
learning of opinions, and not a process of gaining real 
knowledge. One learned what others had thought, but not 
what truth was. Benfey was a vivifying wind, to breathe 
life into the dry bones, for he showed scholarship as dis 
covery and not as a rehearsing of wise opinions. From 
him I returned to Oxford, and there my eyes were opened 
by another teacher. 

In October of that year work for the Final School of 
Literae Humaniores began, embracing classical philosophy, 
history and scholarship the typical Oxford school and a 
wonderfully stimulating and educative course, in spite of 
the fact that an examination is its goal. Now in philosophy 
I had been brought up at the feet of Professor Bain, whose 

1 Immediately after the First Public Examination in June, 1874. 



14 //. Introductory. 

ability stood out conspicuous in the University of Aberdeen, 
and whom I regarded as having said the final word in the sub 
ject, viz. that all philosophers had been mere jugglers with 
phrases, who succeeded in bamboozling the world into the 
belief that there was some meaning under their words, where 
as in reality there was none. Bain's class of Logic had been 
the one class at Aberdeen in which I eagerly aimed at 
gaining the first place ; and it had been a severe blow when 

I came out twenty-first. 

As it was now necessary to know something about one 
of those jugglers with words, named Plato, and I was 
perfectly ignorant as to his particular way of deluding 
people, I felt bound to attend the lectures of Mr. Bidder on 
the Republic. Going across the quadrangle to the first 
lecture I remarked to a friend that I should now have to 
spend two years in learning how Plato had been able to 
delude mankind. 

The lecturer walked up and down the room with his 
thumbs in his waistcoat pockets talking lightly and easily 
about the development of thought and language in Greece 
before Plato. He put a question to me at an early stage, 
which I answered from the lofty level of a devotee of Bain. 
He airily tore my reply to tatters and explained clearly 
what I ought to have said. Thereafter, he continued every 
few minutes to put a question to me and to exhibit the 
helpless inadequacy of my reply. In one hour I learned 
what a fool I was a very salutary lesson for a young man 
and at the end of the hour I remarked to the same friend : 

II Bidder is evidently a man of ability, and he seems to think 
that Plato had some meaning in his words : I must try to 
find out whether that is true ". One hour had changed 
my whole attitude towards philosophy, and made it possible 
for me to begin to understand Greek thought. 



//. introductory. 15 



In Oxford there were many other able lecturers on philo 
sophy, and at St. John's in particular there was an excellent 
man, from whom I learned much ; but Bidder with his incisive 
speech was the one man that could have opened my eyes. 
I shall always remember Aubrey Moore with deep gratitude ; 
but his words would have passed me by and made no im 
pression on my unopened mind. He could never have un 
sealed my eyes, though he taught me more than Bidder 
after my eyes were open. 

It was a great step to make in that first hour with 
Plato. If you want to understand the relation between 
Greece and Asia, you must begin by understanding 
Greece ; but I remained blind and deaf to the true 
spirit of Hellenism, however much I might admire and 
love Greek literature, so long as the mind was closed to 
Plato. 

Benfey recommended me to Max Miiller, who took a 
generous interest in my scheme of studying Sanskrit, and 
gave me the opportunity of meeting at his house people 
from the greater world ; but he strongly advised me to 
finish the Final Schools before spending serious labour on 
the language. A visit to Cambridge, and interviews with 
Peile, the master of Christ's, author of a book on the young 
science of Comparative Philology, and with Cowell, the 
Professor of Sanskrit, confirmed Max Miiller's warning that 
there was no career in Sanskrit except as a sequel to the 
regular schools. Then Benfey's attempt to procure for me 
a presentation from Government of the vast Commentary 
of Sayana on the Rig- Veda proved unsuccessful. Like 
many later disappointments, it was a blessing in disguise. 
Had the book been given me, honour would have bound 
me to justify the gift and to labour at Sanskrit. As it was, 
I was free to act on Max Miiller's advice, and thus was 



1 6 //. Introductory. 



rescued from a culde sac. The path of Sanskrit had nothing 
for me : the men who wrote Sanskrit cared nought for 
mundane things, and the history of action would have be 
come no clearer from its study. I shut the books, intend 
ing to return to them after twenty-two months, and have 
never opened them again. 

In 1876 the Final Schools were approaching, and with 
them a Divinity examination, involving either the Thirty-nine 
Articles or some substitute. I could not with years of 
labour pass an examination in the Articles : to read them 
was as impossible as to fly to the moon. In childhood I 
could have committed them to memory like the Shorter 
Catechism, without understanding what I repeated ; but at 
the age of twenty-four that was impossible. I took refuge in 
the Epistle to the Galatians, and communed with Lightfoot, 
whose transparent honesty was invigorating and delightful. 
My mother's love for Paul began to move in my mind ; and 
she and I read together Conybeare and Howson's Life and 
translation of the Letters, a thoroughly scholarly book. 
I was now full of Aristotle's most advanced treatises, and 
came to Paul with a new mind, finding him the true successor 
of the Stagirite. 

The letter to the Galatians I was free to regard as the 
work of Paul, for it was admitted in the Tubingen School, 
which at this time was my guide in criticism. The logical 
skill with which Baur and his associates carried out their 
premises to their foregone conclusion had impressed me 
deeply, and I did not inquire into the premises, which in 
fact were accepted as necessary by a follower of Bain, but 
should not have been accepted by one who was beginning 
to think that he might succeed in understanding Plato. I 
was still under the domination of schools, and accepted the 
principles taught by such great writers and teachers as had 



//. Introductory. 17 

first caught me, and as yet I had not learned to go back to 
first principles for myself. 

In the summer before the Final Schools I spent two 
months near Robertson Smith, and under his care read 
everything recent that he thought most worth reading on 
the Old Testament, worshipped Wellhausen, dipped into 
the study of comparative religion and folklore, and fell in 
love with J. F. MacLennan's anthropological researches. 
Most advisers would have regarded this as a reckless and 
insane throwing away of chances in the Final Schools, and 
they are right as regards some students, but wrong as regards 
others. I had been hesitating about a Special Subject in 
addition to the prescribed work, and was ready to offer either 
comparative philology with the elements of Sanskrit, or the 
metaphysical " Trilogy " of Plato, or the Metaphysics of 
Aristotle ; I had read them all with equal care, with equal 
interest, and doubtless with equally little understanding, 
and two months spent on the Old Testament was health- 
giving ; probably a Second Class might have been my lot, if 
I had not wandered on to the solid ground of history for 
two months. That ground was slippery : Wellhausen and 
others were reconstructing Hebrew history after their own 
free will ; but they were at least free and they were con 
structing, though after a fashion which seems to me now 
to ignore vital conditions of the problem. 

There is some truth in a remark that I heard Walter 
Pater make : talking of a college tutor's work he said, " I 
prefer pass students to honours students; you occasion 
ally find a passman who can take an interest in the subject 
for its own sake ; but honours men are so entirely occupied 
with their next examination that they have no time to think 
about their subject". I think there are now probably 
some honours men who would escape the censure. 

2 



1 8 //. Introductory. 



I had not such good fortune in the lectures that I heard 
in Oxford on Greek history as on Greek philosophy, and I 
heard none on Roman history. The new men had not 
begun, and the old lecturers (so far as I heard them) were 
hardened in the narrowness of an older school. In 1913 an 
Oxford historian read a paper fixing exact dates in primi 
tive Greek history. I listened, and reflected with intense 
amusement that every sentence in it would have been re 
garded by Oxford opinion in my undergraduate days as 
sheer lunacy; yet here in 1913 an audience of the best 
lecturers in Oxford regarded it as the serious work of a 
serious historian. One draws a moral for the study of New 
Testament history. Perhaps the next generation may draw 
a moral for Old Testament history (as some already do). 

At the end of the fourth year the problem of a livelihood 
confronted me. I had come to Oxford to be a scholar ; 
there was no other path open to that life, so far as I could 
see, except a fellowship ; and a fellowship was as far off as 
ever. I was not on good terms with my own College, 
partly from my own fault, partly from the fact that the 
College, accustomed to boys fresh from school, was puzzled 
by an incomprehensible student who aimed at being a 
scholar, and could not believe that he was genuine. This 
again was fortunate. Had the College approved of me, it 
would have found a place for me ; and circumstances would 
have forced me into the life of a College lecturer and tutor, 
for which I was not suited. The College acted for my best 
interest, and for its own also, I am sure. 

I was on the outlook for any opening, and was ready to 
go off to English Literature, if there had been any places 
in that line of University work, such as now exist in fair 
number. The subject interested me, and there were no ex 
aminations to prepare for, which would prevent one from 



II. Introductory. 19 



serious work. I had read pretty widely, subscribed to the 
New Shakespere Society from its foundation, and made 
addresses to Students' Societies on subjects of English 
literature. Nothing however presented itself, and the pro 
spect was dark. 

Then, as it appeared, the stroke of fate fell, and I was 
ordered by a doctor to go abroad and wander for a year, 
reading nothing, but keeping my ears and eyes and mind 
open, living in the open air, and reversing all the course of 
my life. To go down from Oxford at that stage was to go 
down for ever : the absent is forgotten, and new men come 
up: 

To have done is to hang 
Quite out of fashion like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery. 

And so I said farewell to Oxford, and " went out sighing," 
thinking never to see the fair city again. I had learned 
much there, though not in the conventional way. 

I had just enough with the last year of my scholarship 
at St. John's to pay all I owed, and start on my travels 
with nothing. I did not pay all I owed till several years 
later, and never regretted it, for I found that accounts 
presented to an undergraduate going down were charged 
on a lordly scale ; but some were afterwards rendered on a 
distinctly humble grade. 

Those of my friends and relatives who had disapproved 
my Oxford venture, now found that their disapprobation 
had been fully justified : I had made a disastrous failure, 
none the less a failure that it had been nearly a success. 1 

1 Many incidents, which are omitted because they have no bearing on the 
present plan, show that the phrase, " nearly a success," is justified. Other 
colleges had Fellowships : but, as has been said, a Fellowship of the ordinary 
type would have ruined my aspirations in life. 



2O //. Introductory. 



Those who had approved were now my helpers ; and my 
uncle Mr. Drake told me that ;ioo was at my disposal at 
any time. I went off to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy 
with 2$ in my pocket, to which a second 2$ was soon 
added. I had the fortune to make new friends, to get a 
valuable part of my education, to earn some money, and at 
last to return with as much in my pocket as when I started. 
Always since then I have cherished a warm feeling towards 
Americans, because it was from Americans that much of the 
enjoyment and profit of that year came, and it was they 
that taught me to live in the world of Europe. 

In leaving Oxford I had the fortune to propitiate one 
who was not a friend, and to make a new friend. I called 
on the President of St. John's, who had not liked me and 
made no secret of his dislike. He never hid his opinions 
in such matters. If he thought that a man was a fool or a 
knave, he told him so " in good round terms ". I often 
said in those weary years of undergraduate life at Oxford, 
that if we had met at some house in the country we should 
have got on very well ; for I always admired his blunt 
directness and honesty of language ; but in a college with 
its schoolboy rules, he was puzzled and annoyed with my 
views, which had been expressed to him with a directness 
and honesty like his own. Now that I was going down, I 
felt free to explain the reason of some things, and he said, 
" If your time here were to begin over again, I should act 
differently towards you ". This was about as near as Bellamy 
ever came to making an apology to an undergraduate. 
When the Asia Minor Exploration Fund was started, Pro 
fessor Pelham found that the President of St. John's was 
the readiest of subscribers every year to it. 

The day before I went down I received an invitation from 
the Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, to call on him. It hap- 






//. Introductory. 21 



pened that, while I was in Gottingen two years before, a 
young Balliol philosopher, now Professor J. Cook Wilson, 
came there to study with Lotze ; and he afterwards spoke 
of me to Jowett. T. H. Green, one of the Examiners in the 
Final Schools, had also mentioned me to the Master : he 
had himself invited me to call on him after the examination 
was over, an honour that I valued very highly. 

Jowett said he wished to learn whether he could help me 
in any way ; and when he heard that I was going abroad 
next day, he said, " If you come back to Oxford, call on me, 
and I will do what I can to help you ". Seven years later, 
in January, 1884, I called on him and reminded him of this 
promise, as having been always ia support to me in a time 
full of uncertainties. 

Not very long afterwards, being (as it chanced) one of 
the electors to the newly instituted Professorship of Greek 
Art and Archaeology, he wrote inviting me to dine with 
him five weeks later, on the night after the election, " to meet 
Sir Charles Newton," another of the electors. It was a 
remarkable act, one of those bold and unconventional 
things that few men would dare to do, and which can be 
pardoned only when they have been justified by success ; 
and we took it as a proof that he hoped I should feel in 
good spirits two hours after the electors made their choice. 
The Professorship was a small one, and candidates in that 
subject were few and already well known. We said nothing 
to anyone about the invitation until after the event. As 
Jowett had the reputation of caring only for Balliol men, 
this seems worth mentioning as a trait in the character of a 
very noteworthy personality. 

Professor Bywater, a very fine scholar and a great Aris 
totelian, also invited me to call on him, hearing of my 
interest in Aristotle ; and it was refreshing to converse with 



22 //. Introductory. 



him, or rather to listen to his epigrammatic talk. By a 
coincidence translation from Aristotle, which had decided 
the entrance scholarship, played a part also in the Final Ex 
aminations ; the " Metaphysics " was my Special Subject, 
and among the unseen translations was a piece from the 
" Physics ". Of this I gave two renderings, one straight and 
the other treating the passage as an unintelligent mixture 
of the notes made by two different pupils who heard the 
same lecture and wrote what they could understand of it, 
these separate notes having been put together by a third 
pupil, who edited the lecture. This theory, caught from 
Trendelenburg, I had in private study applied to some 
other parts of Aristotle ; and it was excellent training for 
the treatment of similar theories as applied by some scholars 
to the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul. 

At Max Miiller's house I met Professor Sayce, and 
afterwards saw him a good many times. He was the first 
person who treated me frankly as a scholar, not as an 
undergraduate. The examinations that divided me from 
other dons did not exist for him. He saw only the interest 
in scholarship and the love of truth ; and my inclination 
towards the Asian borderland was much stimulated in 
talking with him. He was for many years the only cor 
respondent that I had in Oxford to keep the connexion 
living. 

So far as work in life, or even the way of earning a liveli 
hood was concerned, the outlook was darker than ever. In 
Oxford after the Final Schools, a friend and I had planned 
to make an edition of the Nicomachean Ethics, and that 
work was just begun when my Oxford life was brought ap 
parently to an end. The deciding event was now at hand ; 
but it came very slowly. At Rome in January, 1878, 
when talking with a young Oxford graduate, a Modern 



//. Introductory. 23 



History Fellow who was learning Italian for his special 
work, I chanced to mention what my aim had been in life, 
a thing which I never mentioned to any one in Oxford, 
after it had led to trouble in my own college, and that now 
no path seemed open except a place in the British Museum. 
He at once said that he could get for me an introduction 
to Mr. Stuart Poole, Keeper of Coins there ; and in due 
course he procured a letter from Mr. R. Lane Poole (now 
Fellow of Magdalen and Lecturer in Diplomatic in the 
University) to his uncle at the Museum. On my way 
home to Scotland about the end of March I presented this 
letter. Mr. Poole received me very kindly, and asked me 
to lunch to meet Sir Charles Newton, Keeper of Greek and 
Roman Antiquities, who, as it turned out, was to play a 
determining part in my life. At the time there was no 
opening in the Museum. Mr. Poole said that, if he had 
known sooner, he might have got me an opening in his 
Department : but he had already advertised the place for 
public competition, and could not withdraw from this. He 
suggested, however, that I should enter the competition, 
and said that he felt sure about the issue. I replied that I 
had resolved to enter no more examinations, and moreover 
could not compete against candidates so much junior to 
myself. 

In Scotland sixteen months later, July, 1879, I received 
a letter from Mr. Poole, telling that a Studentship of .300 
a year for three years had been instituted in the University 
of Oxford for Travel and Research in the Greek lands, and 
advising that I should come up to the Museum and study 
there in preparation for it. He said that some candidates 
were spoken of, but the outstanding candidate was a young 
graduate who had the reputation of being extraordinarily 
able, but who in his opinion would not be a good appoint- 



24 //. Introductory. 



ment. By this time I was married, and my wife and I were 
spending the vacation at my sister's house in Sutherland- 
shire. Next morning we started for London. 

We were under no illusions as to the financial side of the 
case. My brother-in-law advised us to go, but pointed out 
that it would take 500 a year to do the work in Greece. 
However, as we had married on a salary of 100 a year for 
one year, the need of earning the additional .200 was 
merely a restatement of the present problem. Robertson 
Smith was giving me work for the "Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica," and we hoped to send letters to the newspapers from 
the Greek world. 

The next three months were spent at the Museum, a time 
of unalloyed happiness, thanks largely as before to the 
kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Drake, who gave us the use 
of their house in town, while they were away in the 
country. 

Of the other candidate, who was two years junior to my 
self, we saw little. His name and fame I had heard as 
early as 1874. He was of Trinity College, Dublin; and 
my Trinity rival and friend had heralded his coming to 
Oxford, describing him as a man of quite extraordinary 
ability. He finished his Oxford course with a most brilliant 
reputation : it was the smallest item in his fame that he had 
got his First with less work than any other man in the 
memory of history. As scholar, critic, dramatist, poet, he 
was the man of the future. I refer to Mr. Oscar Wilde. 
He occasionally appeared at the Museum, and admired the 
art. One would see him rapt in ecstasy before a statue ; 
but, as Newton was quick to see, the statues that he most 
admired were Roman ; and Newton could not look at any 
thing that was not of the finest Greek period and style. 
Personally I thought, and still think, that something could 



II. Introductory. 25 



be said on Wilde's side in this dispute ; but it was not, and 
is not now, my business to say it. 

In October, 1879, we na ^ to return to Aberdeen, where I 
was assistant to the Professor of Greek ; and Sir Charles 
Newton remarked that it would be necessary to hold an 
examination to decide between Wilde and myself. " In that 
case," I replied, " I am not a candidate." He asked the 
reason. I said I had long resolved that I would not com 
pete against men junior to myself, and also that I did not 
like the examination system. " But," he replied, " what is 
to be done when two candidates are nearly equal ? How 
are we to decide?" "If you have any doubt, prefer the 
junior man." And so we went off to Aberdeen, understand 
ing that this door also was closed against us, as I knew that 
his colleagues the four Oxford electors were sure to prefer 
a man of Wilde's deservedly high reputation, and it was 
evident that Sir Charles Newton desired to hold an ex 
amination ; now he was a man that liked to get his own 
way. 

Late in January, 1880, a letter came from Sir Charles 
Newton saying that I was elected to the Studentship, asking 
when I should be ready to enter on the duties, and inviting 
my wife and myself to live in his house and talk Greek with 
him for some time before going out to Greece, so as to learn 
in this way something about the country and the work. I 
could not get away till the latter part of February, when 
the advanced senior class which I taught in Aberdeen came 
to an end. 

We dreamed now of Athens ; but Newton said " Don't go 
to Athens, which is pre-occupied by the Germans and the 
French; go to the west coast of Asia Minor, where the 
great Greek cities offer a better field to a new man ". 
Accordingly in early May, 1880, we landed in Smyrna ; and 



26 II. Introductory. 



it happened that, on the same day Major (after 1881 
Sir Charles) Wilson, Consul-General for Anatolia, came 
down to Smyrna for one day ; and Mr. Dennis the Consul 
(afterwards Sir George Dennis) invited us to meet him at 
lunch. Sir Charles Wilson, hearing of Newton's advice, 
said " Come into the inner country of Anatolia. The 
coast-lands are open to explorers ; any one can go there, 
but the inner country is unknown. People think that it is 
difficult to travel in the centre of Turkey, but it is not 
really so. Come and make a journey with me ; and you 
will soon learn how to travel." 

The presence of Sir Charles Wilson in Smyrna for one 
day to see Lady Wilson off by the steamer to Europe, was 
the cause that directed us to the upper country. 1 Every 
other person in Smyrna warned us against this : the English 
were disliked by the Government, all officials would be 
hostile to us, troubles and dangers would confront us. 
After some weeks the Consul informed me that he had 
written to the Foreign Office clearing himself of all 
responsibility for our movements and our fate, as we had 
persisted in going on dangerous excursions in defiance of 
his prohibition. The truth was that the danger, such as it 
was, was almost confined to the brigand-haunted neighbour 
hood of Smyrna ; and we consulted good authorities before 
we started on any excursion in that region. 

The Consul, a very well-meaning person, would have liked 
to keep us as in a sheepfold, safely tucked in every night ; 
he knew nothing about the state of the country, and he 
did not wish to be troubled by any incidents in his province. 
Had we listened to his orders, we should have remained 
in Smyrna for the three years of the studentship, except when 

1 ActS XIX. I, T& WWTfplKk (JlfpT). 



II. Introductory. 27 

he went out himself with a guard of armed servants, police 
men, and soldiers : in which case he was most courteous in 
inviting us to accompany him. In the spring of 1881 I 
rode with Sir Charles Wilson from Smyrna zig-zag across 
country to Sivas and Samsun, and got a first glimpse of 
the real Turkey. 

Thus it came about, with no conscious choice and after 
many vain essays in other directions, that in October, 1881, 
we found ourselves starting on our first larger venture into 
the Phrygian country, "weird with fable," the enchanted 
land of Midas the King. 

It had been a long apprenticeship to live through before 
we found ourselves at last started to explore on the borders 
between Greece and the East, between Europe and Asia. 

In 1 88 1, when we began our more extended journeys, 
the Ottoman Railway was in process of extension from 
Aidin, the old terminus, towards the East, and rail-head was 
at a village called Kuyujak. There we had our first experi 
ence of life in our own tent at the uncompleted station : 
there was a considerable difference from travelling in Sir 
Charles Wilson's company, with tents and well-trained ser 
vants ; but that experience had been useful in many ways. 
We learned what were the indispensable accompaniments of 
life, and how much we could do without. 

We began to travel in the old Turkey of caravans and 
mediaevalism. We have lived and travelled and observed 
through the years of transformation ; and now we are still 
travelling in the half-modernized Turkey of railway trains 
and French-speaking officials. 

The expedition begun in October, 1881, more by luck 
than good guidance, resulted in the discovery of many 
Phrygian monuments. That gave us a start ; but the 
Studentship was coming to an end rapidly. 



28 //. Introductory. 



In June, 1882, a letter from Professor By water reached us 
at Iconium (Konia), offering a research fellowship at Exeter 
College, tenable for five years, the conditions being two years' 
exploration followed by three years' study and publication at 
home. The letter also promised that in case of acceptance an 
Asia Minor Exploration Fund should be formed to provide 
the means of exploration, and requested a reply if possible 
before the College meeting in the end of June. The tele 
graphic reply cost five francs, which implies brevity. In 
work such as we had drifted into, three years is nothing ; it 
took three years to learn what the problems of Asia Minor 
are, and how one should start to seek the evidence. 1 

This is an example of the way in which our exploration 
of inner Anatolia progressed. Something always turned 
up, when travel seemed to be reaching its end. My "last 
journey " to Asia Minor became a family joke : I often said 
good-bye with ceremony and pathos to inner Anatolia 
there was no more money and ever the means to return 
offered themselves. It was always the unexpected that 
happened. 

Even the Three Years' Studentship which took us out 
to Asia Minor came to an end, when we no longer needed 
it, and was not renewed. It was created by Mr. Montague 
Bernard who expected that the commission for reforming 
the University (of which he was a member) would make it 
a permanent institution. He died before the three years 
ended, and the Commission made no foundation of this 

1 It is astonishing that in this country people now regard a Fellowship of 
150 or 200 for one or two years as the endowment of Research. In 
America more reasonably they call this sort of thing " Post-graduate 
study " ; and the hideous character of the word " post-graduate " should not 
blind us to the truth that the Americans are right in principle and we are 
wrong. 



77. Introductory. 29 



kind 1 The Montague Bernard Studentship seemed to have 
been made for us, and then to cease. 

Thus our exploration has lasted during thirty-four years. 
Only in the nine years after 1891 I stayed at home, 
except in 1 899. An attack of cholera, contracted in a ship 
coming from Alexandretta, incapacitated me for some years ; 
and I aimed at finding and financing a successor rather than 
continuing field-work myself. The successor, J. G. C. 
Anderson, 2 did much excellent work, travelling for a 
number of years very widely in Asia Minor ; but he was 
appointed to office in Christ Church, and travelling was not 
for a Senior Student and lecturer. Then the opportunity of 
returning for a summer was offered me by a friend in Bir 
mingham ; and in 1901 we found ourselves again resident in 
Konia as a centre for exploration. 

Even after we settled to explore in central Asia Minor, 
my ideas about a sphere of work still needed to be 
altered in one respect. My inclination was entirely towards 
Greek, in literature and in art ; and I spent no time willingly 
on Latin. In the spring of 1886 I was a candidate for the 
Professorship of Greek in Aberdeen, a position where the 
long summer vacation from April to October promised the 
free time needed for travel ; but was not appointed by the 
Crown. Several weeks later came a letter from a friend in 
Aberdeen saying that the Chair of Latin would be vacant 
within a few days, and urging me to be a candidate : he 
stated that certain misapprehensions had led to my being 
ruled out in the previous candidature, and explained how 
they could easily be dispelled. Had I learned about this 
vacancy in Latin through the newspapers, it would not have 

1 The University itself made some provision in other ways for travel in 
Greece. 

2 A pupil in one of my earliest years at Aberdeen. 



30 //. Introductory. 



occurred to me to be a candidate; my mind was set on 
Greek; but, when the idea was put into my head, it 
fastened itself there and took root, and in a few hours be 
came a resolve ; and I was made Professor of Latin, not 
dreaming what the result must be. 

The reading of the Roman authors turned inevitably, 
owing to my bent of mind, to a study of Roman society 
and administration. One can spend a lifetime in Greek 
literature, taking only the faintest interest in the government 
of the Greek cities, and never looking towards the Hellenistic 
cities of the larger Greece in Asia. But the Roman litera 
ture clings closer to the actual conditions of life. Unless 
one is blinded by a habit acquired in Greek literature, one 
cannot study Virgil and Horace without being plunged into 
contemporary history and forced to understand the policy 
of Augustus and the glory of Italy and Rome. Thus I was 
led on to work at the relation of the Graeco-Roman litera 
ture to the life of the Empire, and to fill my mind with the 
Roman idea. I had found my proper work, the study of 
Roman institutions in Asiatic Greece, and the influence of 
Asia on the Graeco-Roman administration. If I had been 
appointed to a Professorship of Greek, as I wished, or had 
remained a Professor of Classical Archaeology, none of my 
proper work could have been done rightly. 

The most important department of that subject still 
escaped me ; but Sir W. Robertson Nicoll after many re 
quests induced me in October, 1888, to send him a long 
article on "Early Christian History in Phrygia" ("Ex 
positor," Oct., 1888, to Feb., 1889); those papers caught 
Dr. Fairbairn's attention, and led to an invitation to give 
six lectures at Mansfield College, which were published 
under the title of " The Church in the Roman Empire 
before A. D. 170". 



//. Introductory. 31 



In every case the course was marked out by the judgment 
and will of others. In each step I had no thought of the 
succeeding step, but drifted without plan as fate chose. In 
the few cases where I formed a plan, and started on my 
own initiative, I was usually disappointed, and afterwards 
found that the disappointment was a necessary stage in 
education, and that success would have been a calamity. 

I had gone to Oxford with the aim of getting a Fellow 
ship as the way towards a life of Research. If this aim 
had been successful at the time and in the way that at first 
I anticipated, I should have inevitably sacrificed my dream 
and ambition and drifted into some other line. I left a 
failure; and was invited to come back successful in my 
own fated line of life. Nature and the world were wise 
and kind, and always guided where I was erring and 
ignorant : or dare one venture to use a more personal form 
of the idea, and speak of Providence ? 

The story of those long years has been told, not be 
cause the writer's history is of any account, but because 
the following chapters stand in relation to a human being ; 
and those who care to weigh their value scrupulously and 
accurately will take into account the mind which wrote 
them and was moulded by the facts stated in them. 

This was the way that brought me to the study of Luke 
and Paul and the New Testament generally, when I found 
that my prepossessions and pre-formed opinions were wrong. 
The following chapters will show how the discovery of new 
evidence, partly by others, partly by myself, changed the 
judgment and formed opinions of one who had aimed at 
truth and lived for truth. 



PART II. 

LECTURES AT UNION SEMINARY, RICHMOND, VA., ON 

THE BEARING OF RECENT DISCOVERY 

ON THE 

TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER III 

THE FIRST CHANGE OF JUDGMENT 
(MAP ON P. 64) 

THE work that marked itself out for me in Asia Minor 
was to study the art, history, and antiquities of the country. 
Everything that fell between the dawn of history and the 
final conquest by the Turks lay within my period. The 
methods were to be determined by experience ; and, under 
the impulse of Sir Charles Wilson's advice and example, it 
was quickly borne in on me that historical study must in 
a country like this be founded on geography and topo 
graphy. 

On this last point a more definite and complete statement 
is needed to make my present intention clear from the be 
ginning. There did not exist at that time any trustworthy 
map of the country in its ancient or even in its modern 
state. The situation of a few important ancient cities in 
inner Asia Minor was known, such as Dorylaion, Colossae, 
Laodicea, Antioch of Pisidia, Caesarea of Cappadocia, and 
some others ; but occasionally doubts were expressed even 
as to the correctness of the site ascribed to one or other of 
them. About their history, their foundation, fortunes, and 
decay, hardly anything was known. The evidence had not 
been collected and weighed. The accounts of the leading 
ancient cities, given in geographical and historical works, 
were scanty and often untrustworthy in details. True and 
untrue statements were placed side by side, and, as a whole, 

(35) 



36 ///. The First Change 

the generally accepted and (so to say) " official " statements 
were quite uncertain. 1 

The inadequacy, the inaccuracy, and the frequent lack 
of information in the modern works on ancient geography 
made it necessary as a first step to read afresh all the 
original authorities, and to find others hitherto unnoticed. 
Into this programme of work New Testament subjects 
did not enter. It was generally understood at that time, in 
1880 and the years immediately following, that these fell 
under the heading of " Religion," and should be kept apart 
from the kind of historical study on which I was engaged. 
Everything in the department of " Religion " ought to be 
reserved for theologians, and mere scholars kept aloof 
from it. In 1880-3 I considered the time almost lost 
that was spent in copying Christian inscriptions ; they were 
outside my province, and while a sense of duty made me 
take copies of them, yet I grudged the moments thus 
spent. 

In truth, it must be acknowledged that the Christian in 
scriptions which then were already known and published 
contained the absolute minimum of historical information. 
They were of a late period, and with hardly any exception 
were valueless in almost every respect to any kind of 
students, whether theological or non-theological. This 
naturally produced a prejudice against the whole class ; 
but in the progress of discovery, new groups of Christian 
inscriptions gave a different character to the subject ; and 

1 The same remark applies to some of the latest accounts given in 
Pauly-Wissowa, " Realencyclopaedie " ; the articles on Eastern geography are 
far below the standard of other departments. The brief remarks in Mar- 
quardt's " Staatsverwaltung," though much older, are usually right, because 
Marquardt confines himself to positive statements on explicit evidence ; but 
even he sometimes misinterprets, and his few negative statements should 
usually be set aside, as the evidence was not sufficient to justify a negative. 



of Judgment. 37 



many were found of the highest historical and religious 
importance. In a few cases the newly found proved that 
certain epigraphic documents previously published were 
Christian, though their religion, being studiously concealed, 
had not been detected until many similar ones were dis 
covered. 

The earliest Christian epitaphs belonged to the period 
when the religion was proscribed and forbidden, and when 
it was necessary to avoid drawing public attention to the 
Church by the use of language that was patently and 
explicitly religious. Yet even in that period certain forms 
and turns of expression were employed which conveyed a 
meaning to those who were in the secret. 1 The investiga 
tion of these private signs was at first entirely conjectural, 
and the way was uncertain tnd unmapped ; but most of 
our early conjectures have been confirmed in later discovery. 2 
In this way the realm of Christian epigraphy began to be 
included in the domain of Graeco-Roman social and poli 
tical history. 

Among other old books that described journeys in Asia 
Minor the Acts of the Apostles had to be read anew. 
I began to do so without expecting any information of 
value regarding the condition of Asia Minor at the time 
when Paul was living. I had read a good deal of modern 
criticism about the book, and dutifully accepted the current 

1 Monsignor Duchesne was perhaps the first to publish the discovery of 
one highly important class of Christian epitaphs, though more recently he 
has apparently abandoned his opinion, and dates one of the most remarkable 
epitaphs of this class in the fifth century; see Part III, last chapter. 

2 The entire body of evidence will appear in Professor H. Gre"goire's 
collection of the Christian inscriptions of Asia Minor, the publication of 
which at Brussels was hoped for soon (beginning with Part I in the end of 
1914), but the development of politics and war has indefinitely postponed it 
(see also below, last chapter of Part III). 



38 ///. The First Change 

opinion that it was written during the second half of the 
second century by an author who wished to influence the 
minds of people in his own time by a highly wrought and 
imaginative description of the early Church. His object 
was not to present a trustworthy picture of facts in the 
period about A.D. 50, but to produce a certain effect on his 
own time by setting forth a carefully coloured account of 
events and persons of that older period. He wrote for his 
contemporaries, not for truth. He cared nought for geo 
graphical or historical surroundings of the period A.D. 30 
to 60. He thought only of the period A.D. 160-180, and 
how he might paint the heroes of old time in situations 
that should touch the conscience of his contemporaries. 
Antiquarian or geographical truth was less than valueless 
in a design like this : one who thought of such things was 
distracting his attention from the things that really 
mattered, the things that would move the minds of men in 
the second century. 

Such was the commonly accepted view in the ; critical 
school about 1870 to 1880, when I had been studying 
modern opinions. It is now utterly antiquated. There is 
not one point in it that is accepted. Everything is changed 
or discarded. But about 1880 to 1890 the book of the 
Acts was regarded as the weakest part of the New Testa 
ment. No one that had any regard for his reputation as a 
scholar cared to say a word in its defence. The most con 
servative of theological scholars, as a rule, thought the 
wisest plan of defence for the New Testament as a whole 
was to say as little as possible about the Acts. 

I began then to study the Acts in search of geographical 
and antiquarian evidence, hardly expecting to find any, 
but convinced that, if there were any, it would bear on the 
condition of Asia Minor in the time when the writer lived. 



of Judgment. 39 



If he knew the country at first-hand, the knowledge might 
show itself in his narrative ; but any knowledge that might 
appear would be what the writer knew by experience : he 
would not dream of spending energy on revivifying for 
gotten details of long-past history and antiquities. 

The first thing that made me begin to doubt the judg 
ment which I had formed, or rather, had accepted from 
others, about the late origin of " the Acts of the Apostles " 
was a discovery regarding the geographical statement in 
XIV. 5 : " They fled (from Iconium) to the cities of Lycaonia 
and the surrounding region ".* In these words it is implied 
that Paul and Barnabas fled over a frontier into Lycaonia, 
i.e. the border of Lycaonia lay between Iconium and Lystra, 
and Iconium was not in the country called Lycaonia. 
This piece of information is purely a matter of geography : 
it has no bearing on religion and on the Church questions 
of the second century. It is technical, narrow, and in a sense 
external to the narrative, which as one might think would 
run equally well although this detail were absent. 2 

As the point is a technical one, it needs some technical 
explanation, which leads us amid the minutiae of Anatolian 
topography ; but here at least the soil, though dry, offers 
firm footing, when one takes the trouble to get hold of the 
facts. The technical argument is stated in chapter IV. 
apart. At present it need only be said that the main 
facts are: (i) Iconium is described in the modern treatises 
on ancient geography as a city of Lycaonia ; (2) we were 

1 ^ ircptxwpos is a noun, the region that lies round (the cities) : i.e. Lycaonia 
contained two cities and a stretch of country around, where there were no 
cities but only villages organized after the Anatolian style, not according to 
the Hellenic municipal fashion. 

8 In further study, however, one finds that the matter is essential and 
carries much weight in the purpose of the book, although at first it had seemed 
almost accidental and unnecessary for the author's purpose. 



4O ///. The First Change 

assuming that this description was true in A.D. 50, whereas 
a little investigation would have shown that it was false 
(see ch. IV.). 

One authority, familiar to every schoolboy, describes 
Iconium as the last city of Phrygia. That authority is 
Xenophon, who in the Anabasis tells how the ten thousand 
Greeks (among whom he himself was marching) reached 
Iconium on their way from north-west to south-east and 
after leaving it crossed the frontier into Lycaonia. Now 
the author of the Acts had read a good deal of Greek litera 
ture, and could appreciate it ; and beyond doubt he was 
influenced by it. There is no improbability in the supposi 
tion that he may have read the Anabasis, and remembered 
this fact. 

What was true, however, about the period described by 
Xenophon, 400 B.C., was not necessarily true about the 
period described in Acts, A.D. 47. In that long lapse of 
time many changes occurred in the boundaries of countries 
and regions of Asia Minor. 

The evidence of Cicero, who visited Iconium, seemed clear. 
He speaks of Iconium as being in Lycaonia almost exactly 
a century before Paul visited it. Some other authorities 
agree, but the testimony of one witness like Cicero seemed 
sufficient. Then to speak of fleeing from Iconium into 
Lycaonia, when we take Iconium as the chief city of 
Lycaonia, is as if one were to speak of going from Rich 
mond into Virginia, or from London to England. The ex 
pression does not ring true. Suppose a tramp came to ask 
help and told a pitiable story of his sufferings at the hands 
of an infuriated crowd of rioters in Chicago, and said that 
he had barely succeeded in boarding a freight-train and 
getting away into the State of Illinois, you would feel at 
once that he was inventing a story, and that he never had 



of Judgment. 4 1 



been in that part of the world, or he would know that 
Chicago was itself in Illinois ; and you would conclude that 
his story as a whole was false, because he was evidently in 
venting the story of the train ; and you would probably 
dismiss him as an impostor, unless you were extraordinarily 
compassionate and slow to wrath. 

Just in the same way it was understood that this detail 
of the journey of Paul and Barnabas was deliberately 
invented by the writer (who was under a false impression 
about the situation of Iconium and the frontier) with the 
intention of imparting to the story plausibility and the 
interest of personal experience ; and the writer of the 
book was condemned as an impostor attempting to rouse the 
readers' sympathy and thus to trade on their credulity. I 
adopted this argument from others : but I made it my own 
by believing it and judging accordingly. We are all equally 
condemned for bad critical method and wrong judgment. 

It seemed, therefore, to others and to myself then, that 
the author of the Acts, knowing the testimony of Xenophon, 
had attempted to impart the semblance of local exactitude 
to a story which he was writing up : he had not before him 
any narrative of the facts resting on real personal acquaint 
ance : yet he does assume the show of first-hand knowledge. 
He sometimes uses the first person, as if he had been 
present at certain incidents of the history. He does, 
beyond all question, convey the impression that his story 
depends throughout on the very best and most unimpeach 
able evidence. 

Here in Acts XIV. 5, we have a test case: at this point 
it seemed to me, when I began this study of Anatolian 
geography, that the story had been proved to ring false. 
The author of the book imparts a piece of topographical 
information incidentally, as his narrative hurries on ; but the 



42 ///. The First Change 

information is false and results from his applying a piece of 
schoolboy knowledge, true in regard of 400 B.C., to the 
different circumstances of A.D. 47. Not merely did this 
statement seem to us to be wrong : it is given in this 
incidental fashion as part of the travel narrative, so that it 
appears as if it were part of the actual experience of the 
wandering Apostles. 

But after all, as is shown in the following chapter at length, 
Iconium was not in Lycaonia at that period. It belonged 
to a different region or district of Asia Minor. 1 Its people 
were of a different stock, and they did not speak the 
Lycaonian tongue. The proof of this statement involves 
the quotation of many ancient testimonies and the results 
of exploration and excavation, and this whole investigation 
will be better kept separate. Here it need only be said 
that the proof is complete, certain, and (as I think) no 
longer a matter of dispute, but universally accepted by 
scholars. 

Now read the narrative of the residence in Iconium and 
in Lycaonia from this new point of view. How luminous 
it becomes as a story of personal experience ! The Apostles 
heard people shout their appeal to the gods in the Lycaonian 
tongue (XIV. 1 1): this impressed Paul, because he had heard a 
different language spoken familiarly in home life at Iconium. 
There they spoke Phrygian : in Lystra they spoke Lycaon 
ian. The contrast struck him, and afterwards in telling 
the story to the author, he almost unconsciously intro 
duced that slight detail ; and Luke let us call him so 
for brevity's sake, because it is the right name, though I 
shall not found any argument on it for the present why, 
Luke remembered it and gave it a place in his book, because 

1 Xenophon and many later writers say that the region was Phrygia. 



of Judgment. 43 



it fulfilled a purpose in his conception of a luminous historical 
narrative. 

It is, from one point of view, a matter of indifference 
whether those Lystrans called out in the Lycaonian 
language, or in the Greek, or in the Phrygian. The import 
ant matter is that they uttered this meaning, " The gods 
have manifested themselves to us in the form of human 
beings," and that they applied the words to Paul and 
Barnabas. To us, reading the words in Greek or in English, 
they are just as effective as if a Lycaonian version were 
printed or read alongside of them ; but to Paul it was not 
so. He had been used to hear the Iconian speech, and 
the new language struck his ear and remained in his memory. 
This small detail remains as a sign and proof that the ear 
of Paul plays a part in the narrative. We listen with him, 
and hear the shout in Lycaonian, and are struck with 
the strangeness of the sound, and remember this when we 
tell the story. In my book, the " Church in the Roman 
Empire," it is argued that visitors to Iconium must have 
heard the Phrygian language spoken there, and that there 
fore there remain so many testimonies by visitors to the 
Phrygian character of the city. 1 As those visitors re 
membered the sound of the Phrygian in Iconium, so Paul 
remembered the Lycaonian at Lystra. 

In XIV. 5, it is stated that the two Apostles crossed the 
frontier into Lycaonia. That was correct alike in the time 
of Xenophon and in the time of Paul. Possibly there may 
have been a boundary stone on the road by which they 
travelled, and the exact frontier line will be known when 
this stone shall be discovered at some future time. It has 
fallen down, and been covered by the soil of that level 

1 That book was published in 1894 ; an( * it was only in 1910 that the proof 
of the use of that language in Iconium was discovered : see next chapter. 



44 HI- The First Change 

plain ; and it will not be found until cultivation and deep 
ploughing may perchance reveal it Similar boundary 
stones are well known. I found one in 1882 lying on the 
road-side between Apameia and Apollonia : it marked the 
boundary between those two cities (and incidentally between 
the provinces Galatia and Asia). This stone is not covered 
up, because it was erected at the top of a lofty steep slope, 
where the road going east reaches the pass level, and on 
those bare and arid mountains there is no dust or loose 
soil to cover the stone ; but it has fallen on its side. It is 
a very large stone in shape like an altar, about five feet high, 
bearing the inscription : " On behalf of the salvation and 
everlasting continuance of the Emperor Caesar Hadrian, son 
of the god Trajan, grandson of the god Nerva (then follow 
the titles, giving the date A.D. 135), the senate and people of 
the city Apollonia, settlers from Lycia and Thrace, (dedi 
cated) to the Frontier-gods." 1 

The sight of such a frontier stone would remain fixed in 
Paul's memory, 2 as the discovery of a boundary like that 
Apolloniate stone remains in the memory of any modern 
traveller. 

A certain emotion is stirred in the mind of the modern ; 
the stone is a mark revealing much history and topography : 
he has been long on the outlook for historical evidence, and 
at last finds it after toil and hardship. The sight of it and 
the pleasure of deciphering the worn and difficult letters 
scratched faintly on the hard stone and conveying so much 
information, make the memory last for life. 

Paul had no stimulus of that kind, as we may assume, 

1 Published in " Historical Geography of Asia Minor," p. 172. 

2 Similarly Luke noted the boundaries of the territory of the city Rome 
far in the south of Latium (xxvm. 14), and distinguishes between this and the 
city proper in the narrower sense : " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 347. 



of Judgment. 45 



to make him mark and remember the boundary ; but there 
was another cause equally effective. He and Barnabas 
were fleeing from a hostile mob, and the boundary meant 
safety. They now passed beyond the limits of Iconium, 
and were under a different administration. It would be a 
crime, not merely against law, but against the Frontier-gods, 
for any Iconian to lift a hand against them after they had 
passed the boundary stone. Piety and religious feeling re 
strained the mob and forbade pursuit. Paul rejoiced here to 
be safe, because his work in Iconium (and in Antioch) was 
incomplete. He had to return to consolidate the congrega 
tions there, to encourage the young converts, and to appoint 
presbyters (XIV. 22). The residence in Lycaonia was a time 
of waiting. 

So St. Thekla, in the early Christian legend, fleeing from 
Iconium to escape from pursuit and a " marriage-by-capture," 
reached safety at the frontier. If we had the legend in its 
oldest form, we should perhaps find this detail in imitation 
of the story of Paul. As it is, the detail was changed, and 
Thekla was received into the rock, which opened to receive 
her, as the local legend still has it, though in the Acta of 
Paul and Thekla it is subjected to further alteration. 

Reading the narrative in this way, and imagining ourselves 
with Paul, seeing with his eyes the boundary plainly marked, 
and hearing with his ears the shouting of the mob at Lystra, 
and feeling with his heart the anxious care of the churches, 1 
we perceive that the incident of the lame man occurred at 
the very beginnning of the residence in Lystra. If we 
follow the narrative of Luke, carefully attending to the ex 
act force of the Greek tenses (which is neglected even in the 
revised version, English and American), this is clear : " they 

1 As in 2 Corinthians xi. 28. 



46 ///. The First Change 

fled from Iconium into Lycaonia, with its cities Lystra and 
Derbe, and the region around the cities ; and there they 
engaged in preaching the good news ; and at Lystra a 
certain man impotent in the feet was sitting, one lame 
from his birth, one who never walked : this man was listen 
ing to Paul preaching, and Paul, gazing fixedly on him (as 
if reading his very soul) * and seeing that he has the faith 
for being saved, 2 called loudly to him, ' stand on thy feet up 
right 1 ". 

In this passage the descriptive imperfect tenses they 
were engaged in preaching he was sitting he was listen 
ing are followed by the sharp instantaneous perception 
and cry (aorist). A scene is described : the various details 
of the situation are, as usual, expressed in the imperfect : 8 
then follows the action expressed by the aorist, and the 
action proceeds stage by stage, each stated by an aorist, 
except the process of attempting to walk, which is an im 
perfect tense. 4 

The intention now seems plain to represent the first part 
of the Lystran narrative as synchronous with the beginning 

1 The allusion to this fixed gaze of Paul occurs only where there is strong 
emotion behind the look, where the soul of one gazes into the soul of the 
other (so in xin. 9). 

2 Salvation here has hardly the Christian sense, but is used practically in 
the common pagan sense, on which see the " Teaching of Paul in Terms of 
the Present Day," pp. 94 f. This is a proof of early date. 

8 This is the regular usage of the language : the imperfect shows that all 
the parts of the scene are co-existent contemporaneously. Out of this scene as 
background stands forth the action in its successive stages (aorist). 

4 If one takes the action more minutely in detail, Pau fixed his eyes on the 
man (as something in the man caught his attention : the great orator is 
sensitive to everything and appreciative of the nature of an individual in the 
audience) : he saw his capacity for salvation : he called out loudly in a sharp 
voice six words : the man sprang up, and set about walking (a slower and 
more difficult process : he had to learn how to walk). The loud sharp voice 
was needed to startle and rouse the soul and the dormant will of the man. 



of Judgment. 47 



of the preaching : they were engaged in preaching, and he 
was sitting and listening. An effect is painted of marvel 
lously rapid character. The Apostles came to Lystra, and 
at once this remarkable event occurred; and they were 
forthwith accepted by the populace as divine beings, Hermes 
and Zeus, Mercury and Jupiter. 

Immediately the people called out that this was a real 
epiphany : the gods had assumed human form and come 
down from heaven to Lystra. One sees that this was said 
about strangers who had just arrived in the town. The 
story would seem less natural if this aspect is neglected : if 
Paul and Barnabas had been in Lystra for some time, they 
would have become familiar to the people of that small 
rustic town ; and familiarity would have made it more 
difficult to take them as gods. But, as it is, the scene shows 
them as two strangers. People know every one by face in 
a small town like this, and perceive that these are strangers. 
Then the lame man walks ; and the populace, quick to 
appreciate divine power and disposed to believe that the 
gods appear from time to time on the earth like men, con 
clude that here before their eyes is an epiphany of their two 
chief and associate deities, Zeus and Hermes. Then they 
call out in the Lycaonian language. It was the first time 
that Paul had ever heard that speech, and the contrast to 
Iconium with its Phrygian and its Greek caught his attention 
and his memory. 

The two gods whom the people understand to have come 
down among them are Zeus and Hermes (Jupiter and 
Mercury in the Latin names). There must have been at 
Lystra a tendency to believe that those two gods were com 
monly associated with one another and likely to appear on 
earth together. Zeus was the supreme god, and spoke to 
men through his messenger Hermes ; he sits quiet, and acts 



48 ///. The First Change 

through his agent and subordinate god. We must, then, 
understand that Barnabas had not yet spoken ; Paul had 
led off the preaching, 1 and Barnabas was the more statuesque 
figure, who sat or stood by, appreciative and marking all 
things from his calm superiority, while Paul delivered the 
message from the quiet and supreme god. The situation in 
every respect suits best the first appearance of the Apostles 
in Lystra. 

That Zeus and Hermes were commonly regarded in that 
region as associated gods is now well known. In my first 
books on the subject 2 I could quote in illustration only the 
epiphany of those same two gods to the old couple Baucis 
and Philemon, as described by Ovid, " Metamorphoses," 
viu. 62 1 -7 1 9. 3 This epiphany is said to have occurred 
"among the Phrygian hills" (621), and the people around 
were the Tyriaians (722). 4 Tyriaion was a small town in 
south-eastern Phrygia, not far from Iconium ; so that Lystra, 
though in Lycaonia, might share in similar religious ideas. 

A better example occurs in an inscription found in 1909 
in Lycaonia, south-west of Lystra, where certain devotees 
dedicate a statue of Hermes to Zeus ; such dedication takes 
place only where there is a close relation between the two 



rov \6yov, XIV. 12. 

2 "Church in the Roman Empire," p. 58, "St. Paul the Traveller," p. 
117. In " Pictures of the Apostolic Church," p. 131, a second example is 
added. 

3 This quotation is mentioned rightly by most of the commentators from 
Wetsten onwards. 

4 The manuscripts give such forms as tirinthius, trineius, tyreneus, 
thyrneius ; and the older editions conjecturally give " Tyaneius " ; but this is 
impossible because : (i) Tyana is a city of Cappadocia remote from Phrygia, 
whereas the event occurred in Phrygia ; (2) Tyaneius is an impossible form, 
whereas TyriSius is a correct form, Greek Tvpuiios, from Tyriaion; (3) 
Tyrieius is nearer the MS. reading. Wesseling on Hierocles, " Synecd. " 
(s.v. Briana Phryg.), suggests Brianeius, recognizing that Tyaneius is un 
suitable ; but objections (2) and (3) apply to this word. 



of judgment. 49 



gods ; and here Zeus needs Hermes as his agent to speak 
and act for him. 1 

An even better example is mentioned to me by Dr. 
Sundwall; 2 it is a dedication to Zeus and Hermes, and 
comes from the same region as the last mentioned. He has 
published it in an article in the Finnish language, which I 
cannot read, and notes the bearing on this passage of the 
Acts. I have not seen this inscription, which was discovered 
by an Austrian Expedition to Isauria and Pisidia in 1902. 

These three cases sufficiently prove that the association 
of those two gods was familiar in the region round Lystra 
and likely to occur to the people when they saw a marvellous 
cure wrought by two strange men entering the town. All 
character and life disappear if we suppose that the two 
men had been living for some time in that little city. 

We must, then, take the plain implication of the narrative, 
viz. that this incident occurred as Paul was beginning his 
work in Lystra. What force is then added to his words 
(Gal. IV. 12-4) in writing to those same people: "You 
did not treat me ill ; you know the facts ; illness was the 
reason I came preaching to you on the earlier of my two 
visits, 8 and you did not despise or abhor my physical 
ailment trial as it was to you but welcomed me as a 
messenger of God ". 

In those words we have a patent allusion * to the sudden 

1 See Calder in Classical Review, 1910, p. 76 ff., and Expositor, July, 
1910, p. i ff. 

2 He is one of the small, but growing, band of scholars that direct their 
work largely to Asia Minor. His Einheimische Namen der Lykier, 1913, is an 
admirable work. 

5 As is very common in the New Testament the construction is parataxis 
for hypotaxis ; " you know that because of illness I preached, and you did 
not despise my ailment " (as in the English Versions), is equivalent to the 
complex sentence, " when I preached because of illness, you did not despise 
my ailing body, as you well know ". 

4 Recognized by Lightfoot, and sorrowfully abandoned by him. 

4 



5o ///. The First Change 

and deep impression which he had made at Lystra. A 
similar instantaneous impression was made at Antioch ; 
Paul came, saw, conquered ; they received him straightway 
on the first sabbath as the messenger of God. 1 There was 
no such situation as has been pictured by many modern 
scholars, that Paul came into Galatia and was there taken 
ill, and in his illness was cared for kindly by the Galatians, 
and then succeeded in evangelizing them successfully. On 
the contrary he is welcomed at his first appearance as God's 
messenger, though they might well have cast him out with 
horror as one who was accursed by the Divine power and 
punished by God with the Divine fire which was consuming 
him without external affection of any part or member. 2 

What Paul here lays stress on, what he mentions as a 
fact well known to the Galatians, is the instant welcome 
which they gave him ; they had some excuse for supposing 
him to be under punishment as an enemy of God, but 
they welcomed him as the messenger of God ; his physical 
illness was a real trial and offence to them, but they paid 
no heed to it and opened their hearts to him, and gave him 
of their dearest and best. 

This situation is exactly that which is described in the 
Acts (except that there Paul's ailment is never mentioned). 3 
The completeness of Paul's success on his first journey (xiv. 
27, XV. 3, 4, 12) was a great encouragement to him. It 
stamped his mission from Antioch onwards as under the 
favour and blessing of God. The work in Cyprus and in 
Pamphylia on the contrary was not blessed in the same 

1 This I did not comprehend rightly in " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 99; 
but it is explained in detail in the " Cities of St. Paul," p. 298 f. 

2 See the " Teaching of Paul in Terms of Present Day," p. 327. 

3 This omission is one of the notable omissions in Acts, and is to be 
placed along with the total omission of the name of Luke and of the person 
ality of Titus. 



of Judgment. 5 1 



way ; it was not a subject of interest to him afterwards (XV. 
39 f.); and it is never mentioned in his letters. 

It is a striking fact that both the narrative in the Acts 
(when rightly read) and the Epistle to the Galatians should 
insist so strongly on the quick, and almost instantaneous, 
success of the mission in Galatia. Here was the " open 
door ". This was the fact that most deeply impressed Paul ; 
and it must be remembered that it is his account to Luke, 
transmitted to us through the latter, which lies before us in 
the Acts. The Epistle states his general impression, but 
does not describe the facts : the history simply narrates 
facts and leaves the general impression to be gathered from 
them. Hence the agreement has not been noticed as it 
ought to be by modern scholars. Yet this agreement and 
"undesigned coincidence" constitutes the most decisive 
proof that the two written authorities are what they claim 
to be, and what they have been accepted as, viz. the work 
of Paul and of his disciple, coadjutor, and personal friend. 

How completely this agreement is ignored can be 
gathered from the words used by the Bishop of Ely (Dr. 
Chase) on this subject : l he simply expresses definitely the 
general attitude of those who think with him. According 
to him Paul and Barnabas " entered the ' Galatian district ' 
. . . they halted at Pessinus . . . Paul had no plan . . . 
he was bewildered : he allowed himself to drift ... he in 
tended so far as he had a plan at all to pass through the 
cities in the west corner of Galatia and so to journey farther 
north to the cities in the east of Bithynia and of Pontus : 
but the wanderer became once again an evangelist . . . 
an attack of illness brought him to a standstill . . . before 
he recovered, he learned to feel an interest in the Galatians 

1 Expositor > Dec., 1893, p. 415. 



52 ///. The First Change of Judgment. 

... he stayed in Galatia for a time, ' doing the work of 
an evangelist'". 1 

There is in this no quick effect, only drifting of a traveller 
without a plan, who does not even begin to evangelize until 
he has learned in the course of an illness to like the people 
who were caring for him and nursing him. The writer 
thinks of modern conditions, in which the homeless invalid 
is tended by " warm-hearted Galatians ". There is nothing 
like that in paganism : the want of it is conspicuous, as is 
pointed out below in chapter IX. Such care of the sick 
stranger is the creation of Christianity. 2 Moreover, this 
fanciful account takes no note of the one important word 
" received " or " welcomed " : it was a newcomer whom the 
Galatians received as a " messenger of God " (Gal. IV. 1 3), 
when he first appeared among them. 8 

Acts rightly understood is the best commentary on the 
letters of Paul, and the letters on the Acts. If Luke had 
never known or read those letters, 4 then all the more re 
markable is it as a proof of the truth and historicity of both 
that the agreement is so perfect. But personally I am dis 
posed to think that Luke knew the letters, though he does 
not make them his authority, because he had a still higher 
and better, viz. Paul's own conversation. 

1 As I read this interpretation of Paul's journey and method of work 
twenty-one years after it was written, I am struck with wonder. It could not 
oe written nowadays. It is as un-Pauline in its ideas as it is impossible in its 
geography. 

2 Below, p. 120 f., and " Luke the Physician," pp. 352, 404 f. 

3 The force of the Greek verb Se^o^ou is free from all doubt : when Paul 
writes to a distant people, among whom he had been, his words cannot mean 
" I was living among and you came to regard me as a messenger of God " ; 
they must imply " you welcomed me as a messenger of God, when I came to 
you ". 

4 It is the general opinion among modern scholars that the letters were 
unknown to him, or at least never read by him. 



CHAPTER IV 

ICONIUM AND THE FRONTIER 
(MAP ON P. 64) 

THE matter which formed the subject of chapter III. forms, 
in a sense, the foundation on which the views which the 
writer holds were gradually built. Each new detail rested, 
or seemed to rest, on suitable evidence ; but the beginning 
lies in Acts XIV. 5. It will therefore be well to state the 
evidence in this first case minutely, more so than is done 
in the remainder of these lectures : and this detailed 
investigation is placed here in a chapter by itself, so that 
this whole discussion of authorities may stand separate, and 
the effect may not be weakened by working it into the 
general argument, while any one that desires to proceed 
with the argument may pass over the minuter discussion. 1 

The purpose of this chapter is to prove that to the 
ancients of the Roman period Iconium was, (i) not a city 
of Lycaonia, but (2) a city of Phrygia. The first assertion 
is, as I think, now admitted generally, though the inevitable 
inferences from it are not considered. The second is 
stubbornly resisted by many, but it is of very great im 
portance for the proper interpretation of the Acts and of 
the Lukan picture of early Christian history. 

As was stated in the previous chapter, I accepted at 

first the statements current in modern treatises on ancient 

geography : Iconium was a city of Lycaonia. So far as I 

looked for evidence, that was supplied by Cicero, an ex- 

1 The result, so far as it adds to Chapter in., is stated on p. 60. 

(53) 



54 IV' Iconium 



cellent witness, a man of the highest education, who 
travelled across Asia Minor from Ephesus to Tarsus, and 
spent ten days at Iconium, and wrote many letters to his 
Italian friends from the country. What better witness 
could be found ? I was, as it happened, familiar with the 
letters, which are on many grounds exceptionally interesting 
and valuable. 

Cicero in one place says that Iconium was in Lycaonia, 1 
and on a superficial view certainly any reader gets the im 
pression that he thought of Iconium as a Lycaonian city. 

The geographical impression is the same. Iconium lies 
on the edge of the great Lycaonian plain : true, it is under 
the shadow of the mountains that fringe the plain on the 
west, 2 and the mountains are not classed as Lycaonian ; but, 
though near the limiting mountains, Iconium is distinctly 
in the level plain. So far as geographical considerations 
are concerned, the city belongs to Lycaonia. 

When the question is raised, however, it must be ac 
knowledged that the impression which we gathered from 
ancient writers is largely moulded by modern opinion and 
text-books, for we read the references already convinced 
that Iconium was in Lycaonia, and interpret the words 
according to our preconceived idea. In one letter 3 Cicero 
speaks of his intention to hold the Lycaonian and the 
Isaurican assizes for his own convenience exceptionally at 
Laodicea. Every commentator explains that ordinarily 
the Lycaonian assizes met at Iconium ; but the truth is 
that the Lycaonian assizes were held at Philomelium 4 and 

lu Fam.," xv. 4, 2. 

2 They rise very steep and sharp from the level plain about five miles 
west of the city. 

3 "Att.," v. 21, 9. 

4 Pliny, " Nat. Hist.," v. 95, writes under the influence of the same feeling 
(i.e. he quotes an authority under its influence) about Philomelium as part 



and the Frontier. 55 

the Isaurican at Iconium. This clears up the situation: 
Cicero classified Iconium in the purely geographical view 
to Lycaonia, but in the Roman administration he regarded 
it as the centre of Isaurican business to which the Isaurian 
people resorted : * he was a Roman, and careless of Ana 
tolian nationalities : 2 Iconium must be whatever Rome 
chose that it should be: racial facts and reasons had 
ceased to exist under Roman rule : the Roman unity 
disregarded and trampled on mere national distinctions 
within the Empire. 

Cicero, therefore, ceases to be an authority on either side : 
he must be set apart as unconcerned with such minutiae, 
unworthy of Roman consideration. 3 This, however, was 
unknown to me, when my studies in this department were 
beginning. 

The first perception of the truth came from the " Acta 

of the Lycaonian diocesis (assize district), transferred to Asia after Cicero's 
time. The passage is quoted and translated fully in a later note, p. 57. It 
is unnecessary to go more minutely into the name of the assizes, as the 
opinion stated in the text above will at once convince any one who studies 
the map and the possibilities of the situation. The matter is so simple that 
either on the one hand it requires no further explanation, or on the other hand 
it would need a very detailed discussion of topography. 

1 In the one case where Cicero speaks of Iconium as in Lycaonia, " Fam.," 
xv. 4, 2, he is giving a careful geographical description of his journey in a 
report to the Senate. Where he is writing about administrative matters, 
" Att.," v. 21, 9, he speaks of the Isaurican assizes, meaning the conventus 
meeting at Iconium. In a report to the Senate, xv. 2, i, he describes his 
march across the province towards Cilicia as being through Lycaonia 
(Philomelium and associated towns to the east) and the [country of the] Isauri 
(Iconium, etc.) and Cappadocia. 

2 Strabo, p. 629, speaks very strongly about the way in which the Romans 
disregarded racial distinctions in arranging their assizes. 

3 One other trace of the " Isaurican assizes " may be found in Ptolemy v. 
4, 12, where he puts Savatra in Isauria : that cannot be explained except as 
due to the fact that Ptolemy used as his authority a list of the cities meeting 
in the Isaurican conventus. 



56 IV. Iconium 



of Justin the Martyr ". Justin was tried with several other 
Christians at Rome in A.D. 163. One of these, a slave 
named Hierax, when asked who his parents were, replied : 
" my earthly parents are dead ; and I have been brought 
here (a slave) torn away from Iconium of Phrygia". 1 So 
strange did this appear to that excellent editor Ruinart, 
that he proposed to correct " Phrygia " to " Lycaonia," in 
order to keep Hierax right. This is the only case in which 
the testimony of a native of Iconium is preserved ; and to 
change his testimony would violate the most fundamental 
principles of criticism. When I read this passage I re 
membered Acts XIV. 5, and saw that it was correct. Alike 
Xenophon in 394 B.C. and Hierax in A.D. 163 knew Iconium 
as a Phrygian city. This evidence supports and confirms 
Luke : Iconium was not in Lycaonia, and Paul, when going 
to Lystra, crossed the frontier into Lycaonia. 

There is abundant testimony to the same effect. Fir- 
milian, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, was present at a 
Council held in A.D. 232 at Iconium of Phrygia. 2 An 
Eparchia of Lycaonia was formed before A.D. ISO; 8 but 
Iconium was not included in it, remaining part of the pro- 

1 As a slave he had a nationality : slaves and sailors of the fleet and 
foreigners were in Roman usage ranked together : they were all classed by 
nationality. The sailors Classiarii originally had been servile, and the cus 
tom of servile naming was official in their case, as Mommsen has pointed out 
in his beautiful article on the designation of Roman soldiers in " Hermes," 
1884 (especially p. 33). Hierax was probably a foundling (dpeirr6s), brought 
up by foster-parents for purposes of slave-trade : on this side of Graeco- 
Roman life, see Pliny, " Epist.," 65, 66, and "Cities and Bishoprics of 
Phrygia," n. p. 546 f. 

2 See Cyprian, " Epist.," 71. 

3 It was part of the large province of the Tres Eparchiae, Cilicia-Isauria- 
Lycaonia. In 295 the cities of the Eparchia Lycaonia were attached to the 
new province Isauria : that is the case in the lists of the Nicene Council, 325, 
which has caused some difficulty to modern scholars (e.g. Harnack, " Verbrei- 
tung," n. pp. 187, 193). 



and the Frontier. 57 

vince Galatia, and therefore in close relation with Antioch, 
the secondary capital of that province. About A.D. 295 a 
province Pisidia was formed with Antioch and Iconium as 
its first and second cities, and on that account Iconium is 
called by Basil, writing in 372, a city of Pisidia. 

Pliny, " Nat. Hist.," V. 41 (145), mentions Conium (i.e. 
Iconium) as one of the ancient and famous Phrygian cities ; 
this may be set against his other seeming statement in V. 
25 (95), that it was in Lycaonia ; but, as we see on closer 
reading, he in the latter passage denies that the Lycaonian 
connexion was true in his own time. 1 

Ptolemy v. 6, 16, whose value as an authority 2 on such 
a point is small in this region, was evidently puzzled 
by the testimony, for he separates Iconium and 1 a part of 
Lycaonia from the province Galatia 3 and puts them in 
Cappadocia, a patent and absolute blunder. 

Strabo also has been read as assigning Iconium to 
Lycaonia ; but this is not quite clear. On p. 568 he de 
scribes Iconium vaguely as being "somewhere in these 

1 " The Pisidians are bounded by Lycaonia, which has been transferred to 
the jurisdiction of the province Asia, with which gather (in conventus) the 
people of Philomelion, Thymbrion, etc. Further a tetrarchy (division of the 
province Galatia) has been furnished out of Lycaonia on the side where it 
touches Galatia (i.e. the three tribes), consisting of fourteen cities, Iconium 
the most famous. Of Lycaonia proper the following cities are celebrated, 
Thebasa, etc." Here three parts of Lycaonia are distinguished, one a con 
ventus handed over to Asia, one a tetrarchy added to Galatia, and one non- 
Roman, the true Lycaonia of king Antiochus. 

On the Lycaonian tetrarchy see " Studia Biblica," iv. p. 46 ff. The his 
tory of that Philomelian conventus has never before been rightly explained. 
On the Antiochiane see "Histor. Geogr. of Asia Minor," p. 372. 

2 He is full of errors of detail in this whole region. 

3 Including several towns which continued to be in province Galatia till 
A.D. 295. The Lycaonian cities which were in the new province of Tres 
Eparchiae he assigns to Antiochiane. In v. 4, 10, he gives another part of 
Lycaonia in the province Galatia. In truth Ptolemy was utterly puzzled by 
the contradictor! ness of his authorities of different ages. 



58 IV. Iconium 



districts," but he has just enumerated " these districts " as 
being the bare, cold, dry plains of Great Phrygia and of the 
Lycaonians, viz. Tatta and the districts round Orkaorkoi 
and Pitnisos (all Phrygian) and the plains of the Lycaon 
ians. 1 This passage affords as much apparent authority to 
infer that Strabo called Iconium a Phrygian as a Lycaonian 
city ; and at least it is evident that his words are vague ; 
now Strabo, when he makes a vague statement, has always 
some intention in his vagueness : usually he is very precise. 

At last in 372 a new province of Lycaonia was instituted 
by Valens, and Iconium was made its metropolis ; and this 
has been its place in the ecclesiastical lists ever since. 
Stephanus, therefore, mentions it as a city of Lycaonia ; 
but in his notice he quotes the legend of Annakos or Nan- 
nakos, king at Iconium, in the days of the Flood, whose 
subjects were Phrygians ; and other authorities call Anna 
kos a Phrygian king. 

It remains, therefore, plain and certain that the writers 
of the Imperial time do not as a rule assign Iconium to 
Lycaonia, and that the most authoritative of them call it a 
city of Phrygia, or a city whose people were Phrygians. 
The legend of Annakos which was widely known in Hellen 
istic times and is mentioned by Herondas in the third 
century is quite clear regarding that racial character. The 
Lycaonian connexion can hardly be definitely supported by 
any author of the Imperial time before A.D. 372, when the 
province Lycaonia was formed. The most definite state- 



5e vov teal rb 'Iic6viov e<m, p. 5^8. He Defines robs TOTTOVS 
rovrovs twice in the immediate context, once as quoted above, once as 
the districts where Amyntas's flocks were pastured : now it is beyond doubt 
that the plains west of Tatta up to Pitnisos and Orkaorkoi (all in Great 
Phrygia) were part of his sheep-runs. Mr. Calder and I have been studying 
this region and its Imperial estates (inherited from Amyntas by Augustus and 
his successors). 



and the Frontier. 59 



ments regarding the Lycaonian character of Iconium are 
all later than 372, viz. Stephanus, Eustathius's note on 
Dionysius Periegesis, and the Etymologicum Magnum. 

I refrain from relying on Joannes of Damascus, who in 
his " Life of Artemius," says : " having traversed all Phrygia 
and come to its last city, called Iconium ". This might 
quite fairly be attributed to his memory of Xenophon ; the 
same expression is used that occurs in the "Anabasis"; 1 
and it might be supposed (as we all used to think about 
Acts XIV. 5) that recollection of Xenophon and a desire 
to display antiquarian knowledge influenced this writer. 
But, at any rate, the statement is in perfect accordance with 
Acts, and the verbs used are favourite terms with Luke. 2 
It is not derived from the facts of Joannes' time, but was 
drawn from older authority. 

Phrygian invaders from the north-west had captured the 
city many centuries B.C. This marked the limits of their 
power : it was the last city of the Phrygians. In the 
presence of other nationalities the Phryges maintained their 
national feeling and speech. Iconium was a Phrygian city ; 
and many of its people spoke the Phrygian tongue in home 
life, though Greek was the language of all educated people ; 
and it was, of course, in Greek that Paul addressed his 
hearers. Greek was, so to say, the sacred language of the 
Christian Church in the first two centuries, and even the 
Roman congregation was Greek-speaking. It was the 



* TTJS Qpuyias ir6\iv fffxdrrjv is the expression of Xenophon. 

2 8i\Q<i)v awaffav T^V &p\rylav KO.\ irpbs rty fff^rnv avrrjs ir6\iv r 
t \K6viov Karavr^ffas : Step^o/tcu with accusative is almost a technical term with 
Luke, and is rare elsewhere than in Acts or imitators : Karavrav occurs nine 
times in Acts. The expression of Joannes can best be understood as a de 
liberate imitation of Luke's style and thought with a Xenophontine touch 
added, which is in perfect agreement with Luke's statements. 



6o IV. Iconium 



influence of Christian Greek that gradually killed the native 
languages of Asia Minor. 

The truth is that those ancient writers who had actually 
visited Iconium call it a Phrygian city, although strangers 
and Cicero sometimes call it a city of Lycaonia. The writer 
who composed this history, which we call the Acts of the 
Apostles, must therefore be ranked along with those who 
had visited Iconium. 1 No proof exists that he personally 
had ever been there, but his narrative rests on the first-hand 
testimony of men who had visited the city, and reproduces 
their correct way of describing it. So far the statement of 
Luke is found to be fully justified ; but there is more to say. 

We have failed to find any authority in the Roman 
Imperial period for classing Iconium as a city of Lycaonia. 
Ancient authority of the highest and most varied character 
assigns it ethnically and linguistically to Phrygia. The 
question, however, arises : how was it classed administra 
tively under the Empire? As has been said above, the 
Romans under the Republic and the earliest Empire per 
sistently and, as one might almost say, intentionally, dis 
regarded national considerations, and arranged their 
administrative and judicial divisions in utter violation of 
ethnical affinities. In Cicero's time Iconium was the 
meeting-place of the Isaurican conventus (see p. 54) ; but 
no trace of conventus in this region is known under the 
Empire; and it must be concluded that that system of 
division (which continued in the province Asia) had fallen 
out of use in the province Galatia. The reason obviously 
was that the Imperial Galatia was not a survival of the 
Republican administration, but an adaptation of the 

1 Xenophon, Luke, Hierax, Firmilian, constitute a chain of evidence of 
the strongest character, running through the centuries, confirmed by local 
legend and municipal pride. 



and the Frontier. 61 



Galatian kingdom of Amyntas. Augustus took over this 
realm, and made it as it was into a Roman province with 
the least possible change : it was contrary to Roman 
method to alter existing conditions more than was 
necessary. 

Now in this Roman province Galatia a part is often 
mentioned under the name Phrygia or Mygdonia. Pliny l 
speaks of Mygdonia as bordering on the southern side of 
Great Phrygia and as being alongside of Lycaonia and 
Pisidia. This description would remain obscure, and 
would be taken as probably referring to some more ancient 
facts which Pliny had not quite correctly appreciated, 2 had 
it not been for an inscription found at Pisidian Antioch, in 
which a " regionary centurion " who had acted as guardian 
of peace and order (in the region), is praised by Mygdonia for 
his success in perserving peace and saving human life. 3 
There can be no doubt that this region is here called 
Mygdonia, and that it lay around Antioch, and that, as 
other considerations show, Antioch was the capital of the 
region. Mygdonia is a poetic equivalent for Phrygia, 
derived from the name of the old Phrygian chief Mygdon : 
and the use of this form is natural in the rude metrical 
epigram of that inscription ; but the occurrence in Pliny 
shows, further, that there was some recognized appropriate 
ness in that name. No other reference to the name is 
known except that this must be the Mygdonia which is 
mentioned by Stephanus as a part of Phrygia. 

1 Pliny, " Nat. Hist.," v. 145. 

2 He has, however, given at least unmistakable evidence of the geographi 
cal situation : Mygdonia was on the south side of the large Phrygia (in 
cluded in the province Asia), and adjoining both Pisidia and Lycaonia. 
There can be no doubt what this indicates. 

3 Published by Professor Calder in "Journal of Roman Studies," 1911, 
p. 80 f. It is on two sides of a large altar, one side in ordinary prose, one 
which mentions Mygdonia in very rude metre. 



62 IV. Iconium 



The name Phrygia often occurs in inscriptions, as desig 
nating one of the parts or regions composing the large 
province Galatia. 1 Dr. Brandis remarks that the name in 
such cases applies only to a part of the Great Phrygia (most 
of which was in the province of Asia), viz., the part lying 
between Pisidia and Isauria and Lycaonia, 2 and containing 
the cities of Antioch and Apollonia. This definition is 
fairly correct. 

Moreover, we notice that Strabo calls Antioch a city 
of Pisidian Phrygia, so that he recognized the existence 
of this separate portion of Phrygia and the need for 
making the distinction clear by a limiting epithet. His 
Pisidian Phrygia is equivalent to Pliny's Mygdonia, i.e. 
Phrygia of the province Galatia. 

In this sense Phrygia (i.e. Pisidian Phrygia or Mygdonia) 
has to be classed as one of the parts or regions of the 
province ; and, as Professor C alder says, these regiones are 
the administrative divisions of the province Galatia. 3 In 
the inscription just quoted the " regionary centurion J> com 
manded all " the stationes of soldiers who kept the peace 
along the main highways of trade and administration " in 
the region Mygdonia or Phrygia. 4 

Now Iconium under the earlier Empire before A.D. 295, 
is persistently assigned to Phrygia, and it seems beyond 
doubt that this city also must be regarded as part of the 

1 Examples are C.I.L. in. 6818 and 6819 ; Frankel, " Inschriften von 
Pergamos," No. 451; Cumont, "Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres," etc., 
Bruxelles, 1905, p. 205. 

2 In these words Dr. Brandis comes very close to the words of Pliny v. 145, 
as quoted above ; yet he evidently was not thinking of Pliny's testimony, for 
he adds needlessly and vaguely the name Isauria. 

3 See his very full commentary in the " Journal of Roman Studies," 1911, 
p. 80 f. 

4 Calder, loc. cit. 



and the Frontier. 63 



Galatic region Phrygia. There are only two possible alter 
natives. It must belong either to the administrative region 
Lycaonia of the Roman system or to the administrative 
region Phrygia ; now the authorities are clear that it does 
not belong to Lycaonia until after A.D. 295, and that it does 
belong to Phrygia. 1 

Judging from the accepted handbooks this result is not 
what we should have expected, and the earlier modern 
scholars did not dream of it ; yet the ancient authorities 
compel assent, and justify Luke's account in the most 
complete way. It may be supposed that, when Amyntas 
held that large kingdom, he discontinued the Roman 
arrangements (as we see them in Cicero), and revived the 
old national divisions, Pisidia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, combin 
ing them in some way as yet undetermined with the three 
tribes of Gauls. 2 Then when in some year about A.D. 138, 
Lycaonia was assigned to the newly created province of 
the Three Eparchiae, Iconium did not so pass, 3 but con 
tinued to be part viprovincia Galatia^ regio Phrygia. 

1 Isauria was perhaps not one of the regiones, but was included in 
Lycaonia: it is once mentioned, C.I.L. in. 6818 (next to Lycaonia, and 
perhaps regarded as joined to it by et understood) : it is possible, however, 
that Isauria was a regio of the province, which, being the smallest, was not 
often mentioned. I assume that in northern Isauria the Lycaonian language 
was spoken. 

2 The Romans, taking over the kingdom of Amyntas as the province 
Galatia, continued all the good arrangements that he had made. There Is, 
as Gardthausen says, no hint that any reorganization took place ; but the 
record is scanty. 

3 Imhoof Blumer, " Kleinasiatische Muenzen," n. p. 415, published in 1902, 
differed on this point ; but conclusive proof has been discovered to justify the 
opinion that I maintained long previously. Imhoof's statement and list are 
probably due to a mere slip of memory, as he gives not only Iconium, but 
also Laodiceia and Par la is and Lystra as cities of the Koinon of the Lyca- 
onians all wrongly. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT ICONIUM 

As a last stage in the demonstration, it may be asked 
why visitors felt that Iconium l was Phrygian. Geographi 
cally, its situation would mark it as Lycaonian. There is no 
possibility of mistaking the limits or ignoring the character 
of the Lycaonian plain. Von Moltke in his " Letters " from 
Turkey quotes from some authority the statement that it is 
the most level plain in the world : certainly none can be 
more level. 

A visitor, therefore, recognizing the obvious character of 
the great plain, would naturally regard Iconium as a city of 
Lycaonia. Later, he became aware that it was a city of 
the Phrygians, and this perception came in such a way as 
to abide in his memory, and make him call the city Phrygian 
when he spoke of it. There can be only one way to explain 
this. Anyone who stayed in the city heard the Phrygian 
speech of the people : he knew in this way that it was a city 
of Phrygians from their tongue. 2 

Those who study the history of Asia Minor know how 
ethnical and nat ; jnal distinctions persist there. In the 
same little valley one finds villages of three or four different 
nationalities. The oeople live side by side. They never 

1 It is quite remarkable how often this memory of the language and the 
racial character persists in the references quoted : " of Phrygia " is added 
needlessly, natives were proud of it : visitors remembered it. 

2 This was pointed out in the " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," 
p. 38, as long ago as 1893 (lectures of 1892). 

(65) 5 



66 V. The Language Spoken 

intermarry. An observant traveller will detect the differ 
ence of racial character, but only if he is on the outlook 
for ethnographical distinctions, because all speak the same 
language, viz. Turkish, all are Moslem of one kind or 
another, and only the women have any noteworthy difference 
in dress. 1 First Christian Greek, and then Turkish, have 
been levelling languages in Asia Minor. 

In ancient time the local dialects lasted long. Neither 
Hellenism nor Roman civilization could obliterate or even 
seriously weaken national characteristics. The Romans at 
first attempted to make their " provinces " supreme over the 
national distinctions ; but after a century they found that 
nationality was a far stronger power than " provinciality ". 
The unity of the Roman province was external : the unity of 
each nation was deeper. Yet for nearly a century the 
Romans tried to impose the " provincial " unity, and the 
people seemed, in their enthusiasm of gratitude for the peace 
and order of the Empire, to accept whole-heartedly the 
Roman unity of the province. Iconium, a Hellenistic city, 
called itself Claudeikonion, i.e. "Imperial Claudian Icon 
ium " : and so Derbe called itself Claudioderbe, while 
Antioch was apparently Roman to the core ; Coloniae 
were, so to say, isolated fragments of Rome itself. 

Yet this appearance was only on the surface. The racial 
character continued, and outlived the " provincial " character. 
Hellenism was a stronger power than Romanism in the 
East : but strongest of all was the old language in a town 
like Iconium. The people did not cease to speak Phrygian 
in their home life. Greek was the speech of education and 

1 1 do not take into account the difference which is emphasized by religious 
diversity, Christian, Yezidi, etc. ; but only the variety of Moslems, Osmanli, 
Turkmen, Yuruk, Kurd of the western clans (different in many ways from 
the Eastern Kurds), and so on. 



at Iconium. 67 



public intercourse, for the city was a Hellenistic organiza 
tion, but Phrygian survived. This language the visitors to 
Iconium heard, as in Lystra they heard the Lycaonian. 1 

More definite proof, however, than this general probability 
was naturally desired by the world of scholars, who are 
disposed to be a little sceptical about such statements as 
this regarding the language of Iconium, statements resting 
on a general estimate of the local conditions. Even those 
scholars who were maintaining against me that the people 
of Iconium would prefer to be addressed by their racial 
name (which those scholars believed to be Lycaonian), and 
not by the Roman provincial designation as " Galatian," 
were doubtful or incredulous when I maintained that Phry 
gian was the home language of the ordinary Iconium popu 
lation in the first and the second centuries. 

There is only one proof that is conclusive, and that is the 
discovery of epigraphic evidence that the Phrygian tongue 
was actually used in Iconium in the first and second 
centuries after Christ. This proof I did not venture to 
hope for owing to the position of the city. 2 

As is shown more fully in the "Cities of St. Paul," p. 
317 f., Iconium is marked out by nature as a centre of 
population, and as a great city throughout the history of 
organized society; the abundant water-supply and the 

1 Prof. Holl of Berlin has proved in an excellent article in " Hermes," 1908, 
that the native languages persisted for centuries after the Christian era. 
Quite independently he reached the same conclusion which I have maintained 
for thirty years, that it was only the Christian Greek, and not the Greek of 
the old civilization, that was strong enough to eradicate the Phrygian and 
other native languages. 

9 It is, of course, beyond question that Paul and Barnabas addressed only 
the Greek-speaking population ; they spoke to the common middle class 
people, the tradesmen and artisans, though with an intermixture of the higher 
classes, Asiarchs in Ephesus, the Council of Areopagus in Athens, Roman 
officials in some places, as well as local magistrates. 



68 V. The Language Spoken 

favourable surroundings ensure this. Hence it has been a 
large city, sometimes capital of an empire, throughout 
mediaeval times down to the present day. Much popular 
feeling is attached to it, and a good deal of native pride 
gathers round it. " See all the world, but see Konia," is an 
old saying about it ; and every visitor is told that " those 
who go once to Konia always return there seven times ". 
As, in the East, every strong feeling tends to take religious 
form, Konia ranks as holy. 

Iconium has therefore been a difficult place to explore. 
Systematic excavation would tax the resources of a million 
aire, for the whole surface would have to be bought ; and 
even the unoccupied land on the outskirts of the modern 
town l is protected by official and popular jealousy, and by 
the feeling that Konia is a holy city. 

There was hardly any chance of finding new evidence 
except when a house was being built on the outskirts or 
rebuilt in the heart of the city. Then it appeared in pre 
paring the foundations that the soil a few feet below the 
present surface is full of ancient stones ; and every new 
house yielded some inscriptions. 

Hence the gradual discovery of the complete proof lasted 
through a long series of years. The time from 1880 to 
1 890 was occupied in acquiring the first-hand knowledge of 
the country which made the ancient narratives more intel 
ligible, and thus enabled me better to understand and 
appreciate Luke's history, and strengthened my confidence 
in my own judgment. 

In two books that were published in 1893 and 1895 2 tne 

1 The modern town is not so large as the mediaeval city, and excavations 
on the outskirts show the wider extent. 

2 "The Church in the Roman Empire," 1893 5 " St - Paul the Traveller," 
1895. 



at Iconium. 69 



meaning of the narrative whose scene lay in Iconium and 
Lystra was explained in a way that seemed convincing to 
some, but not to others. Only in 1910 did a fortunate 
conjunction of circumstances place in our hands the op 
portunity of unearthing the final proof. Every year from 
1901 onwards Konia had been our headquarters and centre 
of exploration ; but we could only put ourselves in the way, 
so as to be ready when influences which we could not con 
trol opened the door before us. 

The principle on which I have worked has been stated 
often from 1883 onwards: the evidence is there: one has 
only to search long enough and it will be discovered. 
Patience is needed. The life of the explorer in such a land 
consists of nineteen disappointments to one discovery. 
Knowledge is needed. Without thorough acquaintance 
with the problems and the whole range of evidence little 
can be learned by the explorer. Money is needed. 
Travelling to be effective is expensive, 1 and excavation is 
triply expensive. 

That principle should be made the rule of the explorer's 
life. The evidence to test all important history, and 
especially the Old and the New Testaments, exists and can 
be discovered with patience, knowledge, ingenuity, and 
money. 

It was not until 1910 that the final proof was discovered. 
Only one kind of evidence in regard to a question of lan- 

1 1 have tried every way. I have travelled for weeks with a single Turkish 
servant and one led horse carrying all our baggage ; and I have gone with 
tents and servants and horses and waggons. The traveller who goes with an 
imposing accompaniment gets far more from the Turks of all classes. The 
traveller who goes with one servant is troubled and may often be stopped. 
In the Greek regions it is different, for the Greeks welcome the archaeological 
explorer quite as heartily, if he is poor, as if he bears the external signs of 
wealth. 



7o V. The Language Spoken 

guage is perfect and unanswerable : and that is epigraphic 
proof of its use. 

In the beginning of May of that year we came to the 
city at an interesting moment. 1 The municipality, desiring 
to get stones for building purposes, had recourse to the 
usual kind of quarry in Turkey, viz. the ruins of the ancient 
city. In the modern town there is a low hill, on which 
stands the Mosque of Ala-ed-Din, also the old church of 
St. Amphilochius, 2 the modern Greek church of the Trans 
figuration, and the Armenian church. Here also are some 
scanty remnants of the once stately palace of the Seljuk 
Sultans. In this hill the municipality proceeded to dig, 
and at once began to find inscribed stones. These were 
seized by the Imperial Museum, which, however, declined to 
pay any part of the expense of finding them. The Muni 
cipality then refused to dig for the benefit of the museum 
and stopped the excavation. 

At this moment we arrived and heard of the situation. 
I called on the Pasha, the governor of the Province (Vilayet) 
of Konia, and offered to conduct the excavations at the ex 
pense of the Fund, giving to the museum all the inscribed 
stones and to the Municipality all the rest. The offer seems 
to us fair and even generous : but to the Turks it seemed to 
hide some subtle plan 3 for getting possession of gold (which 
must of course be there, but which was not mentioned in 
the proposal). Were the infidels to get all the gold ? Some 

1 My companion in that year was Professor Calder of Manchester, an old 
pupil in Aberdeen, and Craven Fellow in Oxford. 

2 Taken by the Turks long ago, and transformed to a mosque, but, as 
every one who went to pray there died, they abandoned it ; and it stands 
empty and unused, and is called Sa'at, " The Clock ". 

3 This difficulty always has to be faced in Turkey. There is an ingrained 
suspicion regarding one's motives, partly caused by some really unfair action 
on the part of Europeans, partly due to the Oriental belief that the ultimate 
reason for action must be gold, and the settled disbelief in ideal motives. 



at Iconium. 71 



negotiation was required ; and we proposed the condition that 
the town engineer should conduct the excavation, fix its 
limits, take possession of all finds, and distribute them be 
tween the different interests concerned. Thus it came about 
that we had the opportunity which I had never ventured 
even to hope for of digging in the hill of Ala-ed-Din. We 
could not go very far as there was said to be some danger to 
the buildings on the centre of the hill ; and after four weeks 
the engineer announced that the digging must stop. 

The walls which we uncovered were the basement of the 
old Seljuk Palace ; and it is evident that the hill, though 
doubtless in part natural, is largely the accumulation of soil 
and dust over ancient or mediaeval walls. The wind-blown 
dust is caught and detained by every eminence, and thus 
heaps are formed under the protection of the walls. 1 

These basement walls of the Seljuk Palace contained a 
number of inscribed stones, about forty-five in all. They 
belonged to the century between 150 and 250 A.D., and 
among them were two inscribed in the Phrygian language. 
Now Phrygian inscriptions of that period are rare, not be 
cause the language was not spoken, but because it was not 
a language of education. Greek was the educated speech. 
All who got any education received it in Greek. Almost 
all who wrote, wrote in Greek. Hence even epitaphs in 
the Phrygian tongue are rare, and a number of these are 
bilingual, written partly in Greek and partly in Phrygian. 
The writers were able to use both languages, but for some 
reason preferred not to abandon wholly the non-literary 
Phrygian tongue. Even in country districts where there is 
reason to think that the use of Phrygian was customary and 
general, epitaphs in that language are not numerous : such 

1 We had the opportunity of observing the results of this process on the 
long-deserted site of Pisidian Antioch during the excavations of 1913. 



72 V. The Language Spoken 

districts would make a poor show in a map of ancient 
civilization. 

Both the Phrygian inscriptions at Iconium are engraved 
on altars. The longer and more important is here added. 
In the translation the uncertain Phrygian words are left 
untranslated. The monument belongs to the period be 
tween A.D. 150 and 250. 

The inscription has been published by Professor Calder 
(who copied it in 1910 along with me) in his "Corpus In- 
scriptionumNeophrygiarum "("Journal of Hellenic Studies," 
191 1, p. 1 88 f.). It is written in a mixture of Phrygian and 
the Greek of the Koine dialect, showing the way in which 
the old language was being supplanted by the colloquial 
Greek. This process is natural in an old Phrygian city, in 
which the language of education and of government had 
been Greek for more than two centuries. One could hardly 
say with confidence whether this should be called a Phrygian 
inscription modified by Greek influence, or a Greek inscrip 
tion modified by Phrygian influence ; it is predominantly 
Greek, but yet Phrygian words, even prepositions, are 
mixed up with the Greek ; lines 11-14 are in real, though 
bad Greek ; i-io are in a Phrygian patois. 

"H\ios Tdios ayo- Helios Gaios pur- 

pavi axaves r6- chases an empty ? 

Troy Kaoavia place in Kaoania 

irpa.yfjLO.TiK- state-sanctioned ? 

5 6v, or ta KO, on which also 

flarrdvt IT- he places a base- 

e'A/ra /co 7?\t- ment and super- 

a Stfye^a structure 

ffa irpieis [A]yp- for his sister ? Aur- 

10 t]\iav Eaa[ay - elia Basa : 

'6ffTis 67r[t)8ta whosoever shall forcibly 

arna-rf, 5c6[>ei enter, shall pay 

TW <J>HTK[Q> to the Fiscus 

14 (Srivapia) 4. one thousand denarii. 



at Iconium. 



73 





PANIAXANeCTb 

JTONKAOANhA 
TT PA THAT IK 
ONATU) KA 

6ICTA NM TT 
AT/\KAHA\* 




FIG. i. Tombstone in the form of an altar with epitaph in the Iconian 
Graeco-Phrygian patois. The shaded part is broken off, and the form is 
restored conjecturally on the analogy of similar tombstones. 



74 V. The Language Spoken 

The general sense of this epitaph is clear ; but there are 
many difficulties which cannot be discussed here. Some 
of them are explained in Mr. Calder's elaborate commentary. 

The only doubtful reading is in line 9, where e* is far 
from clear, and as regards the [A ?] I made the note that A 
was not engraved, also that the second last letter could not 
be X, but <y was certain (differing in form from Y else 
where). See Note on p. 78. 

I follow Professor Calder's transcription in lines 9 f., 
though on the stone I convinced myself (I think with his 
agreement) that there never had been an A. I am disposed 
to think that Helia, not Aurelia, was the sister of Helios. 
Prieis certainly denotes some female relationship, and is 
commonly used as a woman's name in East Phrygian in 
scriptions. The legal penalty at the end is expressed in 
tentionally in the Greek language, as it relates to a matter 
of law ; and Greek was the language of justice and the law- 
courts and municipal affairs. 

The rest of the inscription is expressed in the Iconian 
patois, mixed of Greek and Phrygian. On the analogy of 
elo-rdva) (i.e. lardva)) and similar forms a verb dyopdva) is 
constructed ; but I incline to a different view from Mr. 
C alder ; it seems very probable that Keramon Agora (men 
tioned by Xenophon as a city of Phrygia) was, as I have 
elsewhere suggested, 1 the market of the city afterwards called 
Akmonia, and that Agora was used in the sense of " market " 
in Phrygian, in which case the verb ayopavw might be a 
true Phrygian verb. It is well known that the operations 
and equipments of commerce were highly developed in 
Lydia (and Phrygia), and that this development took place 
specially along the line of the Royal Road from Sardis to 

1 " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," n., p. 595. 



at Iconium. 75 



the East, passing through Keramon Agora. The meaning 
" market " in that case was adopted from Anatolia for the 
Greek word along with many of the devices of commerce 
(including coinage). 1 

Kaoania is probably the Phrygian form of the city name, 
which was hellenized as Konion (Pliny and some Byzantine 
references 2 ) and modified to 'I/coviov or El/coviov to suggest 
a connexion with eltccov an image, giving rise to a legend 
about a sacred statue in the city. 

The stone is rather pretentious, and cannot be the grave 
stone of a very poor person. The fine, 1 too, is considerable, 
and fines were proportioned in some degree to the value of 
the property. The monument was of a common type : 
there was a substructure, on which stood some double 
erection (SiBpe^jra) to contain the coffin or sarcophagus. 
Everything points to the conclusion that the monument 
belonged to a household of some wealth and standing in 
the middle classes of the Iconian population. The Phrygian 
language was therefore not wholly disused even in the class 
of Iconian society where education was likely to have spread. 

In Iconium it is remarkable that any Phrygian inscrip 
tions should 'survive. The city was Greek-speaking as well 
as Phrygian-speaking, and Greek was the language of cul 
ture and of epigraphy. The wonder is, not that only two 
Phrygian inscriptions should remain in a city where that 
language was spoken, but that even two should exist 
where Greek was also in current use. This is a decisive 
proof that the old language still had a strong hold on the 
city as late as A.D. 200. 

l " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," 11., p. 416 f. ; Radet, " Lydie et le 
Monde Grec," p. 155 ff. The Greek word means in Homer the Council : 
Herodotus has it as " the market," and so the Attic usage. 

a " The Thousand and One Churches," p. 512. 



76 V. The Language Spoken 

The work of years was completed. Ethnically Iconium 
was a Phrygian, not a Lycaonian city, and the use of the 
Phrygian language appeared to visitors noteworthy even 
in the third century after Christ. The statement of Pliny 
that Iconium was one of the old Phrygian cities is con 
firmed on all hands. Even the local mythology is markedly 
Phrygian in character. 1 Its heroes are Nannakos, the 
old Phrygian king, and Perseus as symbolic of Greek 
influence penetrating into an Eastern land. The goddess 
of the country was a form of the Great Phrygian Mother, 
Metr Zizimmene or Zizimene, whose home was in the 
mountains on the north-west and north of Iconium. This 
title has impressed various scholars independently as a 
Phrygian name, a dialectic variety of Dindymene. 2 Those 
theological critics in this country who can accept nothing 
unless it is made in Germany may with clear conscience 
accept this identification, as it has been stated by Kret- 
schmer, not as a mere hypothesis but as a positive fact. 
As his authority for the word Zizimmene he quotes the 
German magazine where my article appeared proposing 
the same identification ; there was no other authority for 
the word when he wrote ; but he does not mention that 
I there identified it with Dindymene. Yet he has read my 
comment, because he uses the same illustration which I 
gave (viz. Nadiandos) and no other, though many others 

1 That is shown at some length in my " Cities of St. Paul," p. 319 f. ; but 
much remains that has since been discovered in this subject. Such dis 
coveries, however, are, like all mythological discussions, too speculative for 
the present book. 

2 1 suggested this when publishing the first known inscription of this class 
in " Mittheil. Athen. Instituts," 1888, p. 237. Mr. Arkwright in Jan., 1914, 
writes me on the subject, giving new reasons for the same opinion, which 
came to him independently. I do not, however, regard it as anything more 
than a possibility, which may reasonably be mentioned ; but the fact that it 
strikes every philologist as possible, and Kretschmer as certain, proves that 
this word has the Phrygian character and feeling. 



at Iconium. 77 



might be given and one has been stated by me in " Histori 
cal Geography," p. 348. l I am used to this way of adopting 
my opinions without acknowledgment in some cases, and 
of carefully specifying my name in others where the opinion 
is not accepted. So long as the truth wins acceptance in 
the long run I can afford to wait ; but I have repeatedly 
had to plead, as for example in "The Education of 
Christ," p. 66 f., that "the truth is this, and it is a truth 
which will soon be discovered and emphasized by the 
Germans and will then be brought over and accepted 
among us ". 

I would not have even alluded to the matter had it not 
proved an obstacle in Great Britain to the acceptance of 
obviously true statements by critics, who accept others less 
evidently true, because they can quote them from a German 
authority, ignorant of the fact that ultimately they are to 
be found in the writer's " Historical Geography," or some 
other early work. 

Now, both Xenophon in the Anabasis and Strabo, p. 
663, say in the most explicit way that the traveller, as he 
went along the road, passed out of Phrygia into Lycaonia. 
The geographer Strabo is describing in that passage a 
traveller's route along the great road across Asia Minor 
from Ephesus to the Euphrates ; and the traveller Xeno 
phon is describing the march of Cyrus from Sardis to the 
Cilician Gates. Strabo's evidence carries us back to the 
second century B.C., for he quotes the statistics from 



1 Kretschmer, " Einleitung in d. Gesch. d. gr. Sprache," p. 196, where 
there is a misprint 287 for 237 in quoting the authority for the existence of 
Zizimmene. The perfect generosity and exquisite courtesy with which the 
Austrian scholars Dr. Keil and Ritter von Premerstein have acknowledged to 
the full every matter in which we agree forms a striking contrast: some 
other German scholars of distinguished standing have also shown the finest 
courtesy, e.g. Direktor Wiegand and Dr. Harnack. 



78 V. The Language Spoken at Iconium. 

Artemidorus ; but it gives his own knowledge, for he had 
himself traversed that part of the road. 

Similarly, Luke is describing the victorious march of 
Paul across Asia Minor ; and exactly as Xenophon does, 
he remembers to record the passage across the frontier on 
the road between Iconium and Lystra. 

No more striking and arresting parallel has ever been 
found between writers so utterly unlike, so absolutely 
independent of each other, yet all describing from totally 
different points of view the progress along a great inter 
national road, and marking the stages of the way by the 
nations which they traversed. 

There cannot remain a doubt in the mind of any com 
petent judge who takes the trouble to read the evidence. 
Paul passed the frontier between Phrygia and Lycaonia in 
Acts xiv. 5. From xill. 13 to xiv. 4 he had been in 
Phrygia. 

Note (p. 74). One of the doubtful symbols of I. 9, inter 
preted in the text (p. 72) as a ligature of e and t, is 
justified by the use of the same ligature in a spelling exer 
cise written during the first century on an ostrakon in 
Egypt, and published by Wilcken in Mitteis-Wilcken, 
" Papyruskunde," Vol. I., Pt II., page 165. The use of 
a on the ostrakon for the proper letter, which should be 
simply t, is the misspelling of some careless schoolboy ; 
and the error is due to the unpractised hand slipping into 
cursive writing. So here in 1. 9 the engraver degenerates 
from the very humble standard of the earlier part of the 
inscription. This may justify the reading of V as A. 
Hence the worse form of the upsilon at the end of the line. 



CHAPTER VI 

GENERAL IMPRESSION OF TRUSTWORTHINESS IN THE ACTS 

THE inference from these facts, as just stated, was plain. 
This passage in the Acts is correct : the boundaries 
mentioned are true to the period in which the action lies : 
they are not placed through the mistaken application by a 
later author of ancient statements to a time when they had 
ceased to be pertinent : they are based on information 
given by an eye-witness, a person who had been engaged 
in the action described. The reader, if he reads the narra 
tive rightly, can see with the eyes and hear with the ears of 
a man who was there and witnessed all that happened. 

The reversal of our judgment, then, was complete. 1 
We had imagined that this detail was a blunder due to 
stupidity or ignorance or misplaced ingenuity on the part 
of the author: it has now been found to show excellent 
knowledge and the minute accuracy which comes from the 
faithful report of an eye-witness and participator in the 
action. 

Now the condemnation which, as soon as it was tested 
in respect of one detail, had been proved hasty and false, 
evidently could not be relied on in respect of other details 
without being tested. Fresh examination of the whole 
question was needed. The reasons and grounds for our 
unfavourable judgment regarding the book of the Acts 

1 " Our " means those scholars whose judgment was then widely domin 
ant, and was accepted by me as a humble and convinced follower. 

(79) 



8o VL General Impression of 

must be reconsidered. Prejudice must be set aside. Ignor 
ance of the circumstances of every event must so far as 
possible be replaced by knowledge through fuller study. 
Every condition had to be revalued. Every point had to 
be scrutinized again? 

Of course, there is a certain presumption that a writer 
who proves to be exact and correct in one point will show 
the same qualities in other matters. No writer is correct 
by mere chance, or accurate sporadically. He is accurate 
by virtue of a certain habit of mind. Some men are accur 
ate by nature : some are by nature loose and inaccurate. 
It is not a permissible view that a writer is accurate occasion 
ally, and inaccurate in other parts of his book. Each has 
his own standard and measure of work, which is produced 
by his moral and intellectual character. 

It may be said that the writer of Acts happened to have 
access to a good authority in one detail, and not in others. 
That, however, had not been our argument : the condemna 
tion which we pronounced had been general, and it was 
now proved false in the first test. To try to bolster it up 
by such a new supposition would be wholly unscientific. 
Instead of trying to find arguments in its favour, we must 
frankly confess that it was wrong, and re-try the case as a 
whole. 

Moreover, that way of juggling with the supposed author 
ities of Luke, too, has been abandoned since then by all 
competent scholars. The idea that the writer of the Acts 
had good authorities to rely on for one or two details alone 
would not now be suggested or tolerated. That writer had 
a certain general level of knowledge and information and 
judgment. He has to be estimated as a whole. It has 
probably never been suggested that he depended on an 
informant who was trustworthy about the twenty miles of 



Trustworthiness in the Acts. 81 

road between Iconium and Lystra and untrustworthy or 
unavailable elsewhere : such a suggestion, doubtless, would 
always have been rejected as absurd and would certainly be 
rejected in modern times. 

The question among scholars now is with regard to 
Luke's credibility as a historian ; it is generally conceded 
that he wrote at a comparatively early date, and had 
authorities of high character, even where he himself was 
not an eye-witness. How far can we believe his narrative? 

The present writer takes the view that Luke's history is 
unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness. At this point 
we are describing what reasons and arguments changed the 
mind of one who began under the impression that the 
history was written long after the events and that it was 
untrustworthy as a whole. 

In the special work on which I was engaged at the 
time, some fresh investigation of the case was indispensable. 
Good and safe evidence about Asia Minor in the Imperial 
time or earlier was urgently required by an explorer and 
discoverer. If I could find such evidence, and test it in the 
country, a long vista of profitable work opened itself before 
me. The eager desire for discovery and historical recon 
struction had always possessed me and guided my life (as 
already described). I was finding from day to day other 
unused ancient evidence on a small scale ; and if Luke's 
narrative was trustworthy, it was for me exceptionally 
valuable, as giving evidence on a larger scale. There was 
nothing else like it No other ancient traveller has left an 
account of the journeys which he made across Asia Minor J ; 
and if the narrative of Paul's travels rests on first-class 
authority, it placed in my hands a document of unique and 
exceptional value to guide my investigations. To determine 

1 Xenophon gives little more than names and distances. 
6 



82 VI. General Impression of 

the value of this narrative was a fundamental condition for 
my future work. 

Strabo, as we know, travelled across Asia Minor from 
Tarsus to the ^Egean Sea. He has given us no account 
of his journey; but we can follow his steps, guided by the 
superior vividness and quality of what he says about the 
places which he passed through. A number of the pilgrims 
in the first three crusades wrote accounts of the march that 
they made across the country, often photographically accur 
ate about superficial details ; but the pilgrims were uninter 
ested in the country, unscientific in their attitude of mind, 
poorly educated ; they gave very little useful information, 
and only about a much later period, A.D. 1100-1185. A 
few of the Byzantine historians had seen the parts of Asia in 
which lie some of the incidents of their narrative ; J but most 
of them know nothing about the country and the scenes. 

A word from a witness who has seen what he describes 
may often throw more light on the situation than a page of 
vague description from one who has not seen. A Pauline 
narrative of Paul's journeys would be invaluable for the 
study of Asia Minor in the first century, quite apart from 
the religious aspect of the case. 

There was then, and there still is a strange and quite wide 
spread prepossession that an early Christian, like Paul, must 
have been wholly occupied with the religious propaganda, so 
that he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, and 
observe nothing except the chance of converting some 

1 1 include the case of historians who followed the account of an eye-wit 
ness. Nicetas describes at great length the campaign of Manuel Comnenus, 
ending in his defeat in the Tchyvritzi Kleisoura, A.D. 1175. Either he had 
seen the pass, or he used well the narrative of an eye-witness. No one can 
doubt this who has seen the locality. The last stand of Manuel where seven 
glens meet is easily recognized. 



Trustworthiness in the Acts. 83 

heathen individual or group of persons. This prepossession, 
that Christian authors lie outside the pale of real literature 
and that early Christians were not to be estimated as 
men, has been the enemy for me to attack ever since I 
began to look into the Christian authors with unprejudiced 
eyes. It may be true of some smaller figures and narrower 
minds. It is not true of the greater men. The wide variety 
of interest and information contained in the Cappadocian 
writers of the fourth century is illustrated in another work ; l 
and I have for more than twenty years been maintaining the 
same truth in respect of the writers in the New Testament 
and the greatest of their successors. " In becoming Chris 
tians those writers did not cease to be men : they only 
gained that element of thoroughness, sincerity, and en 
thusiasm, the want of which is so unpleasing in later classical 
literature." 2 

When the Acts is read from this point of view, as the 
real travels of real men along roads or over seas, it be 
comes vivid in the highest degree. Yet in spite of the direct 
statement of Luke in Acts, XXI. 15, that a large party of 
travellers used horses, a statement interpreted and confirmed 
by Chrysostom, it has seemed almost sacrilegious to some 
modern scholars to suggest that Paul ever made a journey 
except on foot 

He was probably able to swim (2 Corinthians XI. 25), 
and the impossibility of any other mode of travel made it 
necessary to admit that he often voyaged on shipboard. 
Why should he not ride, when friends gave him a horse ? 
It is a question of evidence ; and Luke says that the party 
used horses, Acts XXI. 1 5.3 

1 " Pauline and other Studies in the History of Religion," pp. 369-406. 
2 " The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170," p. 176. 
a The passage is discussed in " Pauline and other Studies," p. 267. 



84 VI. General Impression of 

Again, Paul expresses in the most emphatic way his 
gratitude to the Galatians for their kindness ; 1 they were 
ready to give him anything, however dear and valuable, so 
far as physical possibilities permitted. When that was the 
case, why should we assume that they allowed Paul and 
Barnabas to walk from Antioch to Iconium? why not 
furnish their two guests with a waggon for the journey ? I 
cannot feel any doubt in this matter (as is maintained in 
the " Church in the Roman Empire," p. 68) 2 . His deep 
gratitude to the Philippians for sending him money, even 
though it was contrary to his custom to accept any money 
from his congregations, is paralleled by his profound 
gratitude to the Galatians for giving him every kind of 
hospitality and for facilitating his journeys, even though he 
ordinarily travelled on foot and kept himself by his own 
labour. It seems also probable that when Paul made the 
land journey from Troas to Assos, while most of the com 
pany went by sea, he was riding: the word used (7ref$) 
implies only " by land " as distinguished from the other 
travellers who preferred shipboard, but gives no basis for 
inferring that he walked and did not ride. 

It is singular that commentators seem not to have 
thought of any other possibility in this case : yet the con 
trast is here expressly drawn between sea and land travel, 
and it is a recognized principle of the lexicons and of classi 
cal and ordinary Greek, that, where that contrast is clearly 
in the writer's mind, Trefos, -Tre^, and Trefeueti/ cannot be 
taken to imply travel on foot. Even where horses are 
actually at hand, Homer says " if you prefer to go Trefo?, by 
land not by sea, here are horses and a car" (" Od.," III. 324). 

The facts stated in the two preceding chapters showed that 

1 Galatians iv. 15. 2 See p. 313. 



Trustworthiness in the Acts, 85 

it was necessary to read again chapters XIII.-XX. of the Acts 
without any prejudice as to the origin, in order to see what 
could be learned from the book for my special subject, viz. 
the topography, social conditions, political divisions, muni 
cipal institutions, etc. , of Asia Minor. A new authority of 
the highest value for the first century was thus placed m my 
hands. In many details Luke's narrative is confirmed by 
other evidence, some previously known, some more recently 
discovered. In other details no confirmation is known, 
but no contradictory evidence exists that will stand investi 
gation ; and the supposition of his accuracy ought to be 
admitted universally, at least as a " working hypothesis ". 

One could not but notice that the ordinary non-theo 
logical scholars quoted the writings of Luke without hesita 
tion for facts of Roman antiquities. Scholars who aimed 
simply at collecting facts, and had evidently no bias either 
for or against him, seemed to regard him as a sufficient 
authority, whereas the theological scholars, who came with 
a strong bias on certain issues, looked on him as utterly 
untrustworthy. Only on one point of Roman antiquities all 
were agreed, from all sides, in denouncing his statements 
as incredible : this was the famous passage in the Gospel 
of Luke II. 1-3, which every one regarded as a tissue of 
blunders of the most marked and worst kind. To this 
passage we shall return later in this book and for the 
present deal only with the Acts. 

Further study of Acts XIII.-XXI. showed that the book 
could bear the most minute scrutiny as an authority for the 
facts of the ^Egean world, and that it was written with such 
judgment, skill, art, and perception of truth as to be a model 
of historical statement. It is marvellously concise and yet 
marvellously lucid. 

What I was at that time in search of beyond all else was 



86 VI. General Impression of 

some authority for the constitution and relation of the parts 
in the great Roman province of Galatia. Mommsen in his 
volume on the " Provinces of the Roman Empire," sums up 
together in one chapter all the provinces of Asia Minor, 
and describes them after the analogy of the most thoroughly 
Grecized parts of the province Asia. This proceeding, 
however, is not admissible. It is certain that a wide diver 
sity existed between ,the Greek cities of the ^Egean coast 
in the province Asia and the general character of the pro 
vince Cappadocia, where Greek and Roman manners hardly 
began to touch the population in Imperial times. It is also 
certain that the province Galatia was in some ways and in 
some parts almost as Oriental and non-Hellenic as Cap 
padocia : the cities were in part Hellenized or Romanized, 
but only in part, while the country regions round the cities 
remained almost purely Oriental. Among the cities the 
Roman Colonies stood on a higher rank in all respects, 
being, so to say, parts of Rome itself. 

In the Acts then there was a considerable amount of in 
formation about the province Galatia, far more than in any 
other source or even in all other sources put together. 
The inscriptions, few as they were, made it possible to 
criticize, to control, and to understand the evidence of the 
Acts. With this book as a basis of investigation a general 
conception of the province Galatia during the first century 
was gradually formed and stated in outline in " St. Paul 
the Traveller," pp. 102 ff. ; and all subsequent investigation 
has confirmed that beginning. 

One of the first results of this study was rebellion against 
the old and dominant " North-Galatian theory". Be 
ginning to write an introduction to the volume of " Mansfield 
College Lectures " above referred to, 1 1 attempted to describe 

1 " The Church in the Roman Empire before 170." 



Trustworthiness in the Acts. 87 

the state of Asia Minor as Paul found it, and did so on the 
basis of the dominant opinion. As the description proceeded, 
I realized that it was hopelessly incongruous with the 
narrative in the Acts, and gradually the whole had to be 
rewritten. Then the character of the provincial organization 
stood forth clearly outlined in the pages of Luke ; and this 
vitally affects the history and the chronology of Paul, in his 
travels and his letters. 

In the light of this new view, old in a way, but rejected 
in later criticism, the whole of the action in those chapters 
of travel is natural and probable. It is in perfect accord 
with all that we know about the society of the eastern pro 
vinces under the Roman Empire. We have been learning 
a great deal on that subject in the last thirty years ; and 
since 1890 the accumulating results grow clearer every 
month through the illumination which they supply each to 
the other. 

In an earlier period it was possible for scholars with a 
fixed idea prepossessing their minds to maintain that the 
action described in those chapters was often improbable, 
because little corroboration or illustration could be found. 
Since 1890-1900 that period has come to an end. The 
comparative dearth of illustrative examples was due solely 
to want of knowledge, and to the failure to comprehend the 
real character of the recorded illustrations. Incidents and 
passages in the previously known documents began to 
assume a new aspect in the light of recently discovered 
facts. Everything had to be studied afresh. So far as this 
branch of the subject was concerned, the older commentators, 
useful in other respects as their work was, and deserving of 
high respect and praise, had no longer any value and were 
misleading. The same must be said about Blass's com 
mentary on Acts, an excellent and splendid work, but 



88 VI. General Impression of 

written by a Greek scholar of the old type, who studied 
literature and paid the minimum of regard to the circum 
stances and facts of social life (except so far as these 
expressed themselves in words). For grammar and sense 
his commentary is most suggestive and valuable ; but for 
society and history it is misleading. The commentaries 
of Professors Bartlet and Knowles belong to a new and 
better period. 

In his work in the cities Paul is brought into contact 
with a great variety of people in all ranks of life, kings, 
and Roman governors of provinces, the Asiarchs (who were 
chief men of the province Asia and high-priests in the Im 
perial worship), members of the high Council of Areopagus 
in Athens, priests of the local gods at Lystra, Roman 
citizens like Gaius Titius Justus at Corinth (who hospitably 
entertained Paul and all Christian visitors to the city), 1 
leading women in many cities (some as opponents, some as 
friends and helpers), tradesmen, magicians, and sorcerers 
and fortune-tellers and exorcists. 

The variety is remarkable. The propriety of the re 
ferences, and the naturalness and suitability of the incidents, 
are perfect. The more one knows about Graeco -Roman 
society in the east, the more deeply is one impressed with 
the life-like character of the scenes described in rapid suc 
cession, so briefly yet so pregnantly, in those chapters of 
the Acts. 

Everywhere Paul is the centre of the action : he beckons 
with his hand, he opens his mouth, and all listen to him. 
Where Paul is, every one else is secondary in the picture 
that Luke paints. With what i boldness and freedom, and 
yet with what courtesy and respect, Paul addresses Festus 

1 Acts ixvni. 7 ; Romans xvi. 23. 



Trustworthiness in the Acts. 89 

the governor, and Agrippa the king ! He perhaps loses his 
temper once and blazes forth in indignation at the callous 
command of the high-priest ; * but immediately he recovers 
himself, and apologizes with perfect politeness and self- 
command, when he learns that the person who had issued 
the brutal order was a ruler of the people. 

The more I have studied the narrative of the Acts, and 
the more I have learned year after year about Graeco- 
Roman society and thoughts and fashions, and organiza 
tion in those provinces, the more I admire and the better 
I understand. I set out to look for truth on the borderland 
where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here. You 
may press the words of Luke in a degree far beyond any 
other historian's, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and 
the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows 
the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and 
of justice. Too often, when one reads some foolish criti 
cism, the words of Shakespeare rise in one's memory, that 
here is " folly doctor-like controlling skill ". 

1 Acts xxiii. 2. 



CHAPTER VII 

TRIAL SCENES IN THE ACTS 

TAKE, for example, that scene which is alluded to in the 
paragraph almost immediately preceding (Acts XXIII. 2 ff.). 
It has been much criticized. How could Paul, it is asked, 
be ignorant that it was the high-priest who issued the order 
to smite him on the mouth ? The dress and insignia of the 
high-priest were unmistakable, also his position in the 
meeting as the president of the Council. If you start on 
that line of thought and inference, either you must conclude 
that Paul told a polite fiction when he said, " I did not 
know it was the high-priest," and (as some do) you moralize 
about the lower standard of truth that was accepted and 
acted upon among the ancients and the Jews generally ; or 
you infer that Paul was too blind to recognize the insignia 
and rank of the president (though he blazed out in indigna 
tion against the person who had spoken) : or that the scene 
(as many say) is invented and unnatural. When we con 
sider the circumstances, however, it is clear that this 
was not a formal meeting of the Council of the nation, it 
was an assemblage of leading men hastily summoned as 
advisers by the Roman officer in command at Jerusalem. 
The officer was in authority : he was the one man that could 
judge and give a decision : the rest were only his assessors. 
By no means could a proper meeting of the Council be 
called in the way followed on this occasion. He summoned 
"the chief priests and all the Council"; they were the 

(90) 

. 



VI L Trial Scenes in the Acts. 91 

persons whom he would naturally ask for the information 
he needed ; but this does not constitute a proper meeting of 
the Council for its own business. 

Accordingly, instead of either cavilling at the inaccuracy 
of the incident, or going off on wrong lines of reasoning 
about the possibilities at a meeting of the supreme Council 
of the Jewish nation, we should take the scene as a picture 
of what would happen when the Roman officer hastily called 
together the chief priests and the members of the Council : 
the officer was the president : with him rested the authority 
to stop the business and break up the meeting when he 
pleased; 1 he therefore presided. A moment's considera 
tion is sufficient to show that it was not possible for the 
Roman to stand apart, as a mere outsider. The dignity of 
Rome would not permit such procedure. Either the officer 
must be in authority at the meeting, or he could not be there. 

The objection may be advanced against our view that 
the Roman officer himself in his report to the Governor of 
the province calls the meeting "the Council" (xxiv. 28). 
It is, however, evident that the officer in this report is not 
very accurate: thus he asserts that he interfered at the 
riot because he had learned that Paul was a Roman, 
whereas the truth (as Luke has it) is that he interfered first 
on other grounds and afterwards learned about Paul's right 
as a citizen. Moreover, Westcott and Hort regard the 
words " I brought him down unto their Council " as being an 
alternative reading, and place them within brackets in their 
text 2 Perhaps then they do not belong to the report ; and 
the omission would make the report consistent with the 
truth, for the words are inconsistent with Luke's account 

1 As he practically does in xxm. 10. 

2 This implies that they are probably right, but some good authorities omit 
them. 



92 VIL Trial Scenes 

of the facts. The officer's report however is designed to 
set his own conduct in the most favourable light as a careful 
and well-informed administrator; and in carrying out his 
design he does not allow himself to be hampered by pedantic 
considerations of minute accuracy. Here, as always, safety 
for us lies in the most careful reading and interpretation of 
Luke's own words. He fully understood that the officer 
misrepresented facts ; but it is part of his literary art to 
state the precise truth, and let his readers see for themselves 
how the Roman officer treated the case. The officer's re 
port is, if anything, a more complete justification of Paul 
than the facts narrated by Luke are ; the Roman takes the 
most favourable view, and practically says " there is no case 
that I can find against the prisoner, but these Jews hate 
him so much on religious grounds that his life is not safe 
here ". Roman policy at the beginning favoured the free 
teaching, as Luke loves to show. 

At the meeting Paul took the initiative. This course 
was unexpected, and it annoyed the high-priest. More 
over, Paul used the Hellenic and wholly anti- Hebrew ex 
pression, " I have lived the life of a citizen ". The very 
word was an offence to the stricter Jews : the thought ex 
pressed in such a word was Hellenistic and not Palestinian. 
One can hardly imagine that a man like Paul, so sensitive 
to the atmosphere and emotion of the audience which he 
addresses, would use the term " citizen " in apostrophizing 
a Jewish Council ; but here he is speaking with the officer 
as his judge, and he has to make his defence so as to con 
vince the Roman. Nominally he has to address the Jewish 
notables ; but his real audience is the officer. The last 
words which he had spoken to the latter contained the 
word " citizen," and he now continues on the same key, " I 
have lived as a citizen ". 



in the Acts. 93 



Everything that seems at first sight difficult in the des 
cription finds its natural place and function as illuminating 
the whole situation, as soon as we imagine the actual 
circumstances, Paul with the officer and his assessors, the 
accusation which the latter are to make, and the sudden 
stroke by which Paul anticipates and wards off what they 
are about to say. 

Not even in Jerusalem would it be imaginable that the 
Council should be both accusers and judges. The officer 
wishes to learn what accusation is made against Paul, and 
summons the leaders and the Council as the accusers ; but 
the decision and future action rest with the Roman. We 
must imagine the scene. Paul is set before the Jewish 
leaders; 1 i.e. over against them. He is not in their midst 
(as he is in the Council of Areopagus, XVII. 22 and 32). 
Paul is on one side, the Jews on the other, and the officer 
between. But in the confusion of the following dissension, 
the relative positions change ; and the change is clearly 
marked in the Greek, though not in the English Version. 
After Paul's words in v. 6, the crowd of Jews was split into 
two parts. It was customary in Roman meetings for those 
who approved of a speaker's opinion to go over and stand 
beside him. The scribes of the sect of the Pharisees stood 
up and took part with Paul, and fought for him, asserting 
that he was right. Then Paul was like to be torn asunder 
between the two factions : his supporters were on one side 
of him, i.e. behind him, while the Sadducees, his opponents, 
were over against him as before ; and he thus was in their 
midst. Accordingly the officer ordered the guard to snatch 
Paul out of the midst of them. 

The relative positions have changed during the proceed- 

1 fls avrotis. 



94 VII. Trial Scenes 

ings, and at the end Paul occupies the same position in regard 
to the Jews that he occupied among the Areopagus Council 
from the beginning to the end of the meeting in Athens. 1 
Thus the very brief description becomes lucid and reveals 
the course of the meeting, if the reader places himself at the 
right point of view. 

So it is everywhere with Luke. The reader must see the 
incident, keeping its successive stages before his eyes. In 
some cases it may make all the difference whether or not 
you have in imagination placed the interlocutors in their 
proper positions relative to one another. If you have got 
the wrong idea even on such a matter as their place on one 
side or other of the hall, you may go wrong in interpreting 
the action. Get them right ; then apply the successive 
verbs describing the action, and you see the whole incident 
run its course stage after stage. 

The effect of misconceiving the situation is perceptible 
in Prof. Vernon Bartlet's discussion of this scene in his 
Commentary (which is as a general rule so excellent and so 
informing). He is forced to the conclusion that " the 
account seems to suffer from the fact that Luke was no 
longer an eye-witness ". 

It seems to us infinitely more probable that Luke was in 
the " circle of bystanders," which was a marked feature of 
every such meeting in the Roman world. All readers of 
the Roman literature of the first century know how import 
ant was the corona adstantium. Prof. Bartlet says that an 
essential part of the action has been omitted, viz. the state- 

1 No one who wishes to interpret rightly the scene in Athens will delude 
himself with the fancy that Paul stood "in the midst of the hill," xvn. 22, 
and then " went out from the midst of them," v. 32. He stood in the midst 
of (the Council) Areopagus, and went out from their midst. All round stood 
the corona adstantium, a great crowd of Athenians, as the description implies. 



in the Acts. 95 



ment of the case against Paul for the officer's information. 
It is, however, apparent that the officer was as much 
bewildered at the end as he was at the beginning of this 
meeting, hearing in the mle only that nothing but obscure 
matters of the Jewish Law and belief were involved. 1 If any 
formal statement of the case against Paul had been made 
for the information of the officer, the charge would have 
been of provoking a riot and causing profanation of the 
Temple, as we know from xxiv. 5,6. It is evident that 
"the statement of the case against Paul for the officer's 
information " never was made at this meeting. 

Luke's account is quite clear, and omits nothing essential. 
The officer called together all the leading Jews, viz. " the 
chief priests and the whole Council," and he " brought Paul 
down, and set him before them". The action of "setting 
before them" implies a few explanatory words from the 
officer, stating the situation and asking definite information 
as to the charge that was brought against the prisoner. 

Then Paul intervened, fixing those glowing eyes of his on 
the councillors as they stood in a body massed over against 
him. 2 We know the look of those eyes from other allusions, 
XIII. 9 in indignation, XIV. 9 in sympathy and insight that 
pierce to the soul. 

Examine the scene as you please, pull it about, try it de 
tail by detail ; but do this with proper knowledge and in 
sight. It all hangs together : every part contributes to the 
whole effect. This sort of account cannot be invented. It 
is real life and action that stand out before the reader's 
eyes and mind. 

1 So he reports in xxm. 29. 

2 If he had been at this time in the midst of the Council who were acting as 
his judges, he could not have fixed his eyes on them. They must have been 
in a body over against him, as Luke implies. 



g6 VII. Trial Scenes 

Another feature of this book must now be mentioned. 
Even the language changes according to the situation. As 
we have mentioned the scene before the Council of Areopagus, 
it may be added that there the very words are Attic. 
Norden in his recent book, in which he studies the scene 
and the speech which Paul delivered, infers from the style 
and language that this passage cannot be written by the 
same author as the rest of the book. Evidently this dis 
tinguished scholar (whose work lies usually in another realm 
of letters) has not studied the Acts very thoroughly. Hence 
he has not rightly considered the work of Luke. In Jeru 
salem and Palestine Luke's language designedly is far more 
Hebraistic in type : in Athens it has an Attic flavour : in 
the Greek world generally Luke uses the general dialect. 

The whole description of the Athenian incident, and the 
action of Paul, are Athenian in tone. He discusses philo 
sophic questions in the market-place with all comers, like 
another Socrates ; whereas in Ephesus he lectures regularly 
in the school of Tyrannus. A vulgar word of Attic slang 
is used by some speakers who had lost their temper. The 
entire incident is bathed in the light and brilliance of 
Attica. What is most specially characteristic of Luke is 
selected by Prof. E. Norden as a reason for condemning 
the whole passage as a scrap of late second century com 
position. 

That the Acts contained and described a series of impro 
bable incidents was a view that has not been tenable or 
possible since 1 890 except through total disregard of recent 
advance in knowledge. It had by that time become evident 
that every incident described in the Acts is just what might 
be expected in ancient surroundings. The officials with 
whom Paul and his companions were brought in contact 
are those who would be there. Every person is found just 



in the Acts. 97 



where he ought to be : proconsuls in senatorial provinces, 
asiarchs in Ephesus, strategpi in Philippi, politarchs in 
Thessalonica, magicians and soothsayers everywhere. 1 The 
difficulties which the Apostles encountered were such as 
they must inevitably meet in ancient society. The magis 
trates take action against them in a strictly managed Roman 
colony like Pisidian Aritioch or Philippi, where legality and 
order reigned ; riotous crowds try to take the law into their 
own hands in thTjess^sJjjclly governed Hellenistic or 
H ellenic cities like Iconium and Ephesus and Thessalonica. 2 
Lystra is an exceptional case ; but in Lystra the Roman 
element was weak from the beginning and quickly melted 
into the older population. 3 Yet how differently does the 
catastrophe proceed in Antioch and in Philippi, or in 
Iconium and Thessalonica and Ephesus. The variety is 
endless, as real life is infinitely varied. A work composed 
in late time for hortatory purposes would have no such 
variety, and no such local truth. 

Legal proceedings are taken against Paul and his friends 
in many places, and accusations have to be made in 
each case according to the forms of the Roman law. The 
accusation varies in each case ; it is nowhere the same as in 
any other city ; yet it is everywhere in accordance with 
Roman forms. 

It was a novel case, this teaching. In itself the mere 

1 I lay no stress on the Areopagus Council at Athens, for even the humblest 
writer of history knew that it was typical of that city ; but the chapter about 
Athens is filled with the Attic spirit and the scene could be nowhere else. 

2 On the difference of Greek and Roman municipal administration see 
Statius, " Silvae," in. 5, 85-94, especially 11. 88 and 94. See below, p. 101. 

3 Colony Lystra was founded 6 B.C. ; and Latin was dying out there under 
Trajan, a century and a half earlier than in Antioch the Pisidian. This 
character is seen in the incidents at Lystra described by Luke. Still the four 
Pauline cities were centres of Romanism in this half- Romanized province 
(p. 86) ; whereas Apollonia rather maintained its Hellenistic memories. 

7 



98 VII. Trial Scenes 

teaching and lecturing was quite permissible by Roman 
law and practice ; and therefore an accuser had to elicit 
some crime out of Paul's conduct and to make a charge 
against him accordingly. In Philippi 'he had interfered 
with the livelihood of a small private firm ; in Ephesus he 
was hindering the trade of a powerful corporation ; in 
Thessalonica he was preaching about another sovereign, 
and was thereby guilty of treason to the sovereign 
(maiestas) ; in Corinth he was tampering with the law of 
the Jews ; in Athens, the University city of the world, he 
was encroaching on the privileges of the corporation of 
recognized professors in philosophy, i.e. the four schools. 1 
Here again the variety is infinite; each new case is different 
from the old, and yet each is natural, each is typical of the 
society and the period, each rises necessarily out of the pre 
ceding situation. 

In one case the accusation was blundered badly. At 
Philippi the accusers appealed simply to the common pre 
judice against the Jews : this was the weakest form legally 
that was ever given to the accusation against Paul, and the 
tardy perception of this weakness made it necessary for the 
magistrates to apologize on the following day. It was not 
simply the Roman citizenship of Paul and Silvanus that 
weighed with them (though that of course was very im 
portant) ; it was the fact that after all no real crime, such 
as would be accepted in the view of the Roman law, was 
charged against them, but mere anti-Jewish prejudice was 
deliberately excited. The Imperial policy disapproved that 
prejudice. 

1 Only two of the four schools are mentioned : the Academic and the 
Peripatetic philosophers take no part. Such variety is natural. The heads 
of the four schools had a salary from the Emperor, and must be Roman 
citizens; Mommsen, "Gesammelte Schrifter," Jur. in., p. 388 f. 



in the Acts. 99 



Again, it is characteristic of an early period in the history 
of the Christian faith that the religion itself is never made 
a charge. Beginning from the Flavian period, 1 Christianity 
was treated as in itself a crime ; the very name constituted 
a grave charge whose penalty was death. There was never 
any difficulty in regard to the form of the accusation against 
any Christian teacher from about A.D. 78 onwards. After 
that time no accuser would stop to formulate small charges, 
when this great and capital charge was ready to his hand. 
Why trouble to get witnesses in support of a less serious 
accusation, when the great accusation required no witnesses, 
and was proved by the mere acknowledgment of the accused 
person, " I am a Christian," and was followed forthwith by 
the death penalty ? 

On this one consideration the argument for the early 
date of the Acts, and its absolute truth to the circumstances 
in which the action occurred, might be rested quite securely. 
Now this is fatal to the theory of a second century date, in 
any form in which that theory has ever been advanced ; for 
every form of the theory presupposes that the writer was 
trying to make a work which would influence his own con 
temporaries, and that he was content to use poor authorities 
or mere oral tradition, distorted by fabricated and miracu 
lous accompaniments. The miraculous accompaniments, 
according to every form of the theory, formed the sufficient 
proof that the authorities used were poor. 

There is one delicacy of terminology so delicate that it 
has never been sufficiently noted which characterizes the 
language of Acts. We are too apt to think and speak of 
the population in all those Anatolian cities as Hellenes, 

1 Some would say " Beginning from the time of Nero," but I have no 
change to make in my expressed opinion on this subject, " Church in the 
Roman Empire," p. 242 f. 

, 







ioo VII. Trial Scenes 

when we desire to speak accurately ; but that is really 
inaccurate. There was a certain generic character in the 
population of those cities, if we set aside the Italians, i.e. 
Roman citizens ; but in a Romany colony this native popu 
lation was the plebs (o^Xo?), 1 while in a Hellenistic city like 
Iconium it was called the Hellenes. Luke is right in this : 
he uses the term "multitude" (o'yXo?, plebs} zk Antioch and 
Lystra, but Hellenes at Iconium. 

Now, as to the motives actuating Paul's accusers, how 
different they are in different places ! how naturally they 
arise out of the incidents and circumstances ! how character 
istic they are of Eastern Graeco-Roman society ! People 
are moved to dislike Paul, to regard him as an enemy, and 
to accuse him of some crime, with the intention of getting 
him expelled or cut off; but they are moved in diverse 
ways. In Cyprus the magician Etymas Bar-jesus feels that 
Paul is endangering his influence with the Roman governor. 
In Ephesus the guild of Shrine-makers perceive that Paul 
is lessening the demand for shrines of the goddess, and de 
stroying their trade. At Philippi the owners of a fortune- 
telling slave girl find that she has lost her power when she 
has stood over against Paul, and that their livelihood is 
ruined. In Athens the professors of philosophy discover 
that Paul is tempting away their auditors, a very trying ex 
perience for the ordinary professorial mind. 2 In many places 
the Jews cause the trouble, because Paul was a thorn in 
their side, partly hurting their self-esteem because he placed 
the despised pagans on the same level of religious privilege 

1 The term ox^os is used of the native population on the Imperial estates 
in this part of the province Galatia ; " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," 
i. p. 283. In a colony the population consisted of (i) the coloni, brought in 
from Rome, (2) the incolce, who are native and non-Roman. 

^Experto crede : I speak as a professor in two Universities, and have seen 
it in many cases. 






in the Acts. 101 



with them, partly interfering with the standing and income of 
the synagogue by drawing the God-fearing Gentiles away 
to follow himself: these persons, who formed a fringe of 
believers attached externally to the Jewish faith, must cer 
tainly have constituted a source of in come to the synagogue 
as well as of social influence to the " Nation of the Jews " 
in the city. 1 

There is, however, one case in which the forms of the 
Roman law are not observed. What is the reason for 
that? The exception is Athens, and Athens was a free 
city which governed itself according to its own laws in its 
ancient fashion through its own courts. Here Paul appears 
before the old Athenian Court of Areopagus which had 
been highly important in the old Athens of early Greek 
history, and which became again very important in the 
University city of Imperial times. 

The proceedings here have no analogy to the stricter 
procedure of a Roman court. Things are done in an easy 
going fashion. There appears in the scene what Statius 
calls the libertas Menandri, the free life of a Greek city 
which Menander knew and expressed in his verses. We 
praise in Statius the correct appreciation of the difference 
between the Hellenic spirit of city life and the spirit of a 
Roman municipality; and \ we comprehend his love for 
Naples, a city of mixed origin, half Greek and half Roman, 
where the stricter Roman spirit was tempered with the 
freer Greek tone : 

"What need to praise the 'sea-born city,' where the free 
dom of the Attic Comedy prevails, where Roman dignity is 
mixed with the Greek capriciousness ? " 

1 The term " nation of the Jews " was technical as designating this people in. 
the Empire, forming part of it, yet distinct from all the rest and recognized as 
distinct by the administration. No other " nation " was permitted within the 
Empire. The national distinction was non- Roman, servile and hostile, p. 56. 



IO2 VII. Trial Scenes 

Quid laudein litus libertatemque Menandri 

Quam Romanus honos et Graia licentia miscent ? 1 

We should equally admire the delicate truth with which 
Luke in his narrative catches the soul of both Roman and 
Greek life, and exhibits them to us in the account of what 
befel Paul at the various cities that he visited. Here you 
have real life in all its truth and variety, expressed with a 
vividness which can spring only from the eye-witness 
telling what he saw and heard 

Yet, instead of appreciating this exquisite picture of 
Athenian life, many scholars persist in misinterpreting 
Areopagus as the Hill, instead of the Court. It is really 
astonishing, sometimes, to see how commentators prefer 
the darkness to the light, and error to truth. 

As the visit of Paul to Athens has been referred to, and 
as the true interpretation of the incident depends on the 
meaning assigned to the term Areopagus, 2 it will be well to 
add a few words on this point. The leading teachers of 
two out of the four great philosophical schools " brought 
Paul before the Areopagus," i.e. the Council of Areopagus, 
and set him in the midst of the Council. These words are 
commonly interpreted "brought him to the hill called 
Areopagus, and set him in the middle of the hill ". Which 
is right ? It is not intended here to discuss this matter as 
a whole ; it has been treated in " St. Paul the Traveller " ; 
but merely to add a fuller discussion than is there given of 
one point, viz. the meaning of the term Areopagus. This 
discussion is intended to illustrate the importance of notic 
ing dialect and even colloquialism in studying the Acts and 
the narrative of Paul's journeys. 

A familiar example in English usage will illustrate and 

1 Statius, " Silvae," in. 5, 93 f. 2 "Apeios irdyos. 



in the Acts. 103 



explain the importance of this point. We commonly use 
the term " the House," when we are speaking of Parliament. 
This is a colloquialism, which has become almost admissible 
in literature. In Oxford familiar usage " the House " 
means Christ Church. To some " the House " is the 
Stock Exchange, to others the poorhouse. One can tell a 
great deal about the experiences of a stranger by noticing 
his use of technical terms peculiar to certain places. In 
the Athenian scene Luke uses Attic terms with perfect 
naturalness and correctness. 

It shows how carelessly statements are made in denial of 
the new and reasonable interpretation of Acts that even 
Blass, a scholar who in respect of Attic usage is usually 
most accurate, denied that the term Areopagus could by 
any possibility be used in the sense of the Council ; and as 
serted that it is used only to mean the actual hill. 1 The 
denial is unjustifiable and incorrect. There are at least two 
cases in which the word Areopagus (Mpeto? 7^709) desig 
nates the Council, and cannot possibly mean the hill : these 
are an inscription of Epidaurus, 2 and Cicero Att, I. 14, 5. 

The latter case shows the character of this usage : it is 
colloquial Attic : Cicero heard it in Athens when he resided 
there, and he used it in familiar speech and letters. The 
man who employed the word in this way knew the current 
way of talking in Athens. In ordinary conversation the 
formal expression " The Council of the Areopagus " 3 was 
cumbrous ; a vivacious people like the Athenians would not 
spend so much time on a name ; and in ordinary conversa- 

1 In his Commentary, p. 190, stating reasons against this interpretation, 
he concludes : quod maximum, non dicitur "Apcios -jrdyos nisi de loco. 

2 Cawadias " Fouilles d'Epidauros," i., p. 68, No. 206. 

8 ij lv 'Apelu irdyy (or ^ 'Apefoi, irdyov) &ov\4\ : rb tv (or <?) A. ir. 
or ffvvfSpiov. 



104 VIL Trial Scenes 



tion they shortened the designation to the simple form " the 
Areopagus ". 

Cicero, a stylist and a purist in language, would use no 
vulgar term. He is a perfect witness that " Areopagus " in 
educated Athenian conversation was used to mean the 
Council in the first century B.C. The other example be 
longs to the period A.D. 50-100. This usage was heard in 
Athens by Paul and his friends. The whole account is ex 
pressed by Luke in the tone and style of language in which 
the action was transacted. That is a fair specimen of the 
marvellous lifelike and truthful character of the book in even 
such small details. This scene is bathed in the light of 
Attic suns. 

The preceding two examples were quoted in my first dis 
cussion of the subject. 1 I think that there are others, 
though beyond all doubt Pape-Benseler goes too far when 
he says that " Areios pagos designates sometimes the hill, 
but mostly the judgment-hall or the Council itself". Many 
of the examples which he quotes for the latter sense should 
rather be explained as examples of synecdoche, the hill being 
used for the Council that met on the hill. Some of his ex 
amples, however, would perhaps pass muster ; and, obviously, 
such a figure of the formal literary speech would naturally 
and inevitably pass into the colloquial usage, as described ; 
but we may leave it to students of the Attic dialect to in 
quire more nicely. 

The two examples quoted already are sufficient proof of 
Attic colloquial usage ; and to them may be added Seneca, 
who in " de Tranq.," V., speaks of Athens as " the state in 
which was Areos pagos, a most revered judgment-council ". 
Though Seneca is writing Latin, he quotes the Greek word, 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 261. 



in the Acts. 105 



spelling it in Latin letters, 1 so that he is a witness for the 
Greek usage, contemporary with Paul. Valerius Maximus 
speaks in pure Latin of " that most holy Council the Areo 
pagus " ; 2 and it may be argued that what is true of a Latin 
term may not be true of the corresponding Greek term in 
Greek usage ; though it seems more probable that Valerius 
would not have used Areopagus thus, if the Greek term was 
incapable of bearing the same sense. 3 He also is of the 
first century after Christ. 

These examples prove the Attic usage as belonging to 
the educated colloquial speech of the Pauline period. We 
hear with Paul's ears and see with his eyes in Athens, just 
as we do at Lystra (see chapter III.). 

1 In qua, civitate erat Areas pages, religiosissimum indicium. The Latin 
term is Areopagus, but the single word is practically never used in Greek. 

2 " Val. Max.," n. 64, sanctissimum consilium Areopagus. 

3 None of the four examples are quoted by Pape-Benseler, though they are 
so strong on his side. The last two are in Wetstein's Commentary. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MAGICIANS IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 

A MARKED and interesting fact in the society of that period 
was the influence of magicians and soothsayers. They were 
extraordinarily numerous. It may be confidently said that 
in the Graeco-Roman world there were few cities, if any, 
even of moderate size that did not possess several of them. 
They were to be found everywhere, for they catered to the 
taste of a large portion of ordinary pagan society. 

Very few in that age were wholly superior to the belief in 
magical power, and not many could refrain throughout their 
life from recourse at some time and in some crisis or trouble 
to the help offered through magical arts. It is true that 
many, including all the more educated and thoughtful and 
respectable part of pagan society, believed that sorcerers 
were dangerous, disreputable and maleficent ; they warned 
young people against having any intercourse with them ; 1 
but the reasons which actuated the wiser and more religious 
or philosophical section of society, and caused this anti 
pathy, betray a general belief in the powers which the 
sorcerers could exert. People disliked the practisers of 
magical arts, not because they were mere impostors whose 
claims were false, but because they really possessed powers 
which they misused for evil purposes. They were hated, 

1 An example of this can be found in the early part of the Pseudo-Lucian's 
" Onos," where the reckless young man is portrayed as eager to see some 
examples of magical powers, and as warned vainly by a good friend. 

(106) 



VI I L Magicians in the Acts of the Apostles. 107 

because they were feared. Such incredulity as Lucian pro 
fesses, such frank and sweeping ridicule of magicians as 
mere quacks, was rare ; and in truth, while Lucian describes 
individual impostors as mere cheats, he does not express 
disbelief universally in the real existence of such powers. 

The current conception of magical powers was that they 
were means of interfering with the order of nature, non- 
religious and illicit ; and people resorted to magicians 
mainly in the hope of procuring what they could not obtain, 
or were unwilling to seek for, through prayers and acts of 
religious character. Religion could work wonders ; magic 
could work wonders ; the marvels wrought by magic, how 
ever, were unnatural and involved a secret and illicit tam 
pering with the proper and moral government of the 
universe. Magic loved secrecy and darkness ; religion was 
open and fair. 

The ancient art of magic has been much studied in 
recent times, and forms the subject of a large number of 
treatises. The discovery of new documents has been less 
important than the fresh study of those which had long 
been known, chief among which was a most important 
manuscript in Paris, full of magical records. The discovery 
of the new documents some of these being in themselves 
of a very foolish character, mere charms and spells intended 
to avert evil expressed in a meaningless jargon, or senseless 
repetition of formulae, for puerility is a general character 
istic of the magical writings directed attention to the old, 
as the new had to be published and the old had to be 
studied to throw light on them. 1 

1 The Bibliography is very fully given by M. H. Hubert in Daremberg and 
Saglio, " Diet, des Antiq. Grec. et Rom.," under " Magia," HI. 1495 ff. ; 
more recent literature in Professor H. A. A. Kennedy's " St. Paul and 
the Mystery Religions ". 



io8 VI I L The Magicians in 

Moreover, the deeper and more intelligent study of 
ancient religion has incidentally led to the study of ancient 
superstition and magic as throwing light on religion. 
Pagan religion and superstition are allied, and the transition 
from one to the other is easy ; witness the difficulty in 
determining whether Deisidaimonia and the cognate adjec 
tive in Acts XVII. 22 are to be understood in a good sense 
as religion or in a bad sense as superstition : l witness also 
the teaching of many, stated most pointedly to us by 
Lucretius, that there was no distinction between the two, 
that religion was the cause of infinite evils, that it 
dominated and distorted the minds of men, tormenting 
them always with unreal terrors and leading them in their 
fears to seek to save themselves by hideous crimes and even 
by sacrificing their own children. All men were praying or 
wishing for Salvation ; they tried to win it through religion, 
and they tried to gain it by magical arts and superstitious 
practices 2 (see chapter XIII. ). 

Magicians could make the moon come down from heaven, 
raise the dead, make animals and stones speak, change men 
into animals and animals back again into men, and do other 
marvellous things. 3 These things proved the magicians' 

1 I do not doubt that Paul had the good sense uppermost in his mind ; but 
the bad is always close at hand; and many educated hearers in ancient 
times, especially the Epicureans who were prominent among Paul's Athenian 
opponents, had the double sense always before them and in truth consistently 
held that all religion was superstition. See " The Teaching of Paul in 
Terms of the Present Day," p. 279 f., and above in Chapter vu. 

2 On the nature of their conception of " Salvation," and on its relation to 
the Christian conception expressed by the same word, the present writer has 
written in " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 10, 
94 f., etc. : also in Chapter xi. of the present book. 

3 This paragraph is only a statement in brief of the description given by 
Monsieur H. Hubert in Daremberg and Saglio's " Diet, des Antiq." s.v. 
" Magia," in. p. 1895. See also E. Le Blant on Artemidorus in " Me*moires 
de PAcad.," xxxvi. pt. n. ; and Cumont, " Astron. and Religion," Index. 



the Acts of the Apostles. 109 

power ; but the populace resorted to them mainly for help 
in the difficulties and troubles of life. Lovers sought charms 
and means of enslaving the minds or possessing the person 
of the objects of their affection. People in general sought 
protection against thieves, or recovery of lost property, or 
rain in drought, or calm weather at sea, or the prevention 
of hail-storms dangerous to the corps, or the cure of diseases, 
or prosperity and fertility in farming and in business gener 
ally, or any of the thousand things that men desire ; and 
where they shrank from praying the gods for these ob 
jects, if illicit and likely to be refused by the divine power, 
or where they had prayed and prayed in vain in the way of 
religion, they tried to obtain them by magical arts. Especi 
ally where people desired to injure or hurt those whom 
they disliked, they could not hope that the gods would aid 
them, and they had recourse to magic. 

Magic was in close relation to astrology, though the two 
domains must be distinguished. Strictly speaking, magic 
aims at modifying the course of events, which astrology 
predicts ; but the modification is effected by knowing and 
misusing the forces and powers through which the motions 
of the heavenly bodies affect the life and fortunes of indi 
viduals. 

Similarly, magic rules a realm distinct from alchemy. 
The magicians made use, or tried to make use, of the pro 
cesses taught through alchemy and discovered by alchemists. 
Yet, inasmuch as the methods and aims of the latter were 
commonly wild and unscientific and their processes were 
expressed in forms that partook of the secrecy and mystery 
of magic, the relation between the two was close. 1 

Again, divination in all its forms, the art of prophecy, the 

1 See the extracts from Zosimos in Notes to Reitzenstein's "Die hel- 
lenistischen Mysterienreligionen ". 



no VIII. The Magicians in 

interpretation of dreams, necromancy, etc., are more or less 
closely ! allied to magic. Necromancy especially must be 
directly classed as a branch of magic. 

Yet divination and prophecy, in their origin, are both 
religious, and their magical employment comes through the 
deterioration of religion. 

There was a widespread and deep-seated feeling in the 
pagan mind, that the divine power was always ready and 
even desirous to communicate its will to men, and that the 
signs which reveal the divine intention either are clearly 
visible around mankind, if men have only the will and the 
skill required to read the signs (divination), or are revealed 
to the mind and soul of men (prophecy). 

Intimations of the divine will were conveyed especially 
through phenomena occurring in the atmosphere or in the 
heavens, such as the flight of birds, thunder and lightning, 
etc., and through the appearance (external and internal) and 
behaviour of the victims offered by men in sacrifice. The 
art of reading all those signs was the pseudo-science of 
divination, which was very liable to be tortured into forms 
nearly allied to magic, because that element of " the secret, 
the incomprehensible, the marvellous, and the absurd or 
unnatural," which is essential to and characteristic of magic, 1 
is rarely wanting in any of the forms of the elaborated 
divination. 

Prophecy was of a higher order, and spoke more to the 
reason and the spiritual nature of mankind ; but even 
prophecy tended to be stereotyped in certain forms, and to 
be localized at certain places called oracles or prophetic 
centres, and thus to become almost professional and pseudo- 
scientific, being subjected to the caprice and ultimately to 

1 Hubert, loc. cit., p. 1495 A. 



the Acts of the Apostles. 1 1 1 

the cupidity of men : where a fee or reward was at stake, 
the answer must be given, whether or not the prophet was 
ready to speak. In this way it came to be often harnessed 
under the yoke of magic. 

It would be an error to regard those magicians as mere 
pretenders and impostors. They varied, of course, very 
greatly as regards character, intellectual power, and the 
degree of knowledge that they possessed. A satirist like 
Lucian may have been ready to look on them all as 
impostors making money out of their dupes by trickery 
and sham ; but that simple formula is insufficient to explain 
the almost universal belief in, and influence of, those persons. 

In the first place, some of them had a certain knowledge 
of the powers and processes of nature : these were the 
" scientists " of their time. Such knowledge of natural and 
physical science as existed at that time they possessed. In 
a similar way the alchemists of the mediaeval world were 
the founders of modern chemistry. Until within the last 
few years the problems which the alchemists proposed to 
themselves for solution (such as the transmutation of metals) 
were considered by modern chemists to be impossible and 
delusive ; but the transmutation at which they laboured and 
experimented, has been brought back within the purview 
of modern chemistry, as some of the most distinguished 
scientific investigators hold. In an American city in 1913 
I received a letter from an eminent chemist, who confused 
me with my more distinguished namesake the Professor of 
Chemistry in London University : he reminded me of a 
former visit which I had paid to his laboratory, and invited 
me to come again to see how much progress he had made 
in the problem of transmutation since I had last visited him. 

Those men practised research with a view to acquiring 
power and wealth ; but we need not deny that some of 



1 1 2 VIII. The Magicians in 

them may have become interested in the pursuit of know 
ledge, and that this nobler aim may have come to play some 
part in their lives and interests. Science has raised itself 
gradually from humble beginnings, humble morally as well 
as in other ways. Some magicians were, after all, one genus 
of the "wandering scholar," seeking for a career and a 
livelihood in the line that they had chosen, and yet liable 
to become so enamoured of the knowledge which they had 
at first regarded as a means that they ended by looking on 
it as an end in itself. Such is a common fact of life. 

We should never blind ourselves to this possible side of 
the ancient magician's character, though we must acknow 
ledge that the influence of scientific study on the nobler 
side of human nature grows stronger as knowledge increases 
and as the acquisition of it absorbs more completely the 
faculties of the mind. The love of knowledge has become 
a far stronger motive as the range of knowledge has 
widened ; but it was not absolutely wanting in that time, 
unscientific and superficial as the age was. 1 

In the second place, some (perhaps many) of those 
magicians in the first century seem to have been the pos 
sessors in some degree of that knowledge which has been 
traditional in the East from remote ages, regarding certain 
mysterious and obscure powers and processes of the nature 
of mesmerism, psychic influence, thought-reading, and so 
on. The character and limits of this domain are too obscure 
to be more than alluded to ; but probably it is not possible 
to understand the position and influence of such persons as 
Simon of Samaria and Elymas Barjesus without assuming 
that they had some knowledge in this realm as well as in 
the one described in the immediately preceding paragraph. 

1 " Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 242 ff. 



the Acts of the Apostles. 113 

Probably Simon was more powerful in this occult domain, 
while Barjesus had more of the character of a student of 
the powers and processes of nature, in which aspect he was 
an object of interest to the judicious and philosophic Roman 
governor of Cyprus. 

Yet, in the third place, after all is said that can be said in 
explanation of the many-sidedness and the possible virtues 
of the magicians in the Graeco-Roman cities, the fact remains 
that they were a noxious growth, condemned by the edu 
cated part of society as evil in action and intention, making 
a living out of the worst tendencies in human nature, its 
greed and its fears and its malevolence. They had to live 
on the credulity of others ; they were fighting for life, 
and did curious things. In this position they had to be 
always ready, and it was necessary to dupe their devotees 
by the practice of tricks and mere imposture. 

The use of magic rites in the casting out of devils is an 
important side of this subject, which will come more suit 
ably in the following chapter. 

It is needless to enumerate any more of the manifold 
species of arts and practices that come under the general 
title of Magic ; enough has been said to show its very varied 
character, and the many diverse types of individual practi 
tioners who would be found among this general class, so 
widely spread in the Graeco-Roman world as we see it por 
trayed in the Acts. There is no class of opponents with 
whom the earliest Christian Apostles and missionaries are 
brought into collision so frequently, and whose opposition 
is described as being so obstinate and determined, as the 
magicians. They play a very considerable part in the book 
of the Acts. At Samaria, at Paphos, at Philippi, and 're 
peatedly at Ephesus, wizards of various kinds meet and are 
overcome by Peter and Paul. Their diversity is endless. No 

8 



H4 VIII. The Magicians in 

one is of the same type as another. They show the infinite 
variety of nature and truth. 

Those scenes of conflict are picturesque; they throw 
much light on the character of society in the cities ; but 
Luke does not describe them so often and at such length 
merely because they were picturesque, or because they 
illustrated the character of contemporary society. It is 
not on such grounds that he apportions the space in his 
highly compressed history. 

The magicians possessed certain powers ; but the 
Apostles are exhibited as always possessing far greater. 
Luke was not averse from recording such instances of the 
great power which true faith and inspiration conferred ; 
but it would be an error to suppose that this consideration 
alone furnishes sufficient explanation of the attention and 
space allotted to encounters with magicians in the Acts. 
That motive, taken alone, is beneath the level of this his 
torian, who moves and writes on a higher plane. 

These incidents, numerous as they are, find a proper 
place in Luke's history, because he is refuting an accusation 
that was commonly brought against the Christians. Like 
the magicians, so the Christians also were stigmatized by 
the populace as maleficent, malevolent, and haters of the 
human race. The violent antipathy which the mob 
cherished towards the adherents of the new religion was 
justified to the world on the pretext that these Christians 
were like magicians, practising secret rites, unlawful arts, 
and abominable hidden crimes. Lucian describes the im 
postor and quack Peregrin us (who was of the genus, though 
almost too silly and pretentious for a proper magician) as 
having been in close relation with the Christians and actually 
one of their company for a time ; but the satirist, true to his 
purpose of portraying Peregrinus as untrue to everything, 



the Acts of the Apostles- 1 1 5 

makes him out to be even a false Christian and a false 
magician. 

The supposed letter of the Emperor Hadrian to Julius 
Servianus (Consul III, A.D. 134) is a good witness attesting 
the popular belief that the Christians dealt in magical arts : 
" there is no presbyter of the Christians that is not an 
astrologer, a diviner, and a professional carer for people's 
physical condition "- 1 Though the letter is fictitious, it none 
the less shows what was the popular belief about the Chris 
tians, and it is quoted by Vopiscus as a proof of his state 
ment to that effect. 

Luke makes no direct answer to this or any other charge 
against the Christians. He merely exhibits in history the 
Christians as inevitably in conflict with all magicians and as 
invariably superior in power to them. The magicians are 
set over against the truth of Christianity, as having neither 
part nor lot in the faith, as causing evil and bitterness all 
around them, as children of the devil, enemies of all right 
eousness, distorters of the truth, and also as feeble impostors 
who shrivel 'into nothing in the light of the sun and the 
pure reality of life. Such are the actual words that the 
persons in the narrative use, and the facts that the historian 
relates. 

For this purpose it is necessary to show the Apostles 
frequently in contact and contrast with the magicians and 
wizards and soothsayers and exorcists and practisers of 

1 Nemo Christianorum presbyter non tnathematicus, non haruspex, non 
aliptes. Deissmann prefers to render aliptes " quacksalver," " Bible Studies," 
P- 336 ( u Bibelstudien," p. 18 f.) ; but I think that the original and proper 
sense of the word was not wholly lost here (compare what is said in the fol 
lowing chapter on the interest shown by Christian missionaries in the physical 
health of the people). Vopiscus himself, in quoting the letter, renders 
aliptes as medicns ; the letter of Hadrian is in "Script. Hist. Aug. Satur- 
nini," 8. 



n6 VIII. Magicians in the Acts of the Apostles. 

curious arts, and thus to demonstrate completely the in 
variable antagonism between them, and the immeasurable 
superiority, even in superficial acts of power, that belonged 
to all who were really possessed of the Spirit. 

There was, of course, a certain generic character, a sort 
of family likeness, that attached to all magicians and to 
the practice of magical arts, and this generic type would 
be familiar to any late compiler of past history. Such a 
compiler in a later age might have introduced specimens 
of the genus magician in his narrative ; but the mere 
inventor or repeater of stories about collisions in long past 
time between his religion and the power of evil could never 
attain the infinite variety of real life and truth. He had a 
didactic object which would control the narrative and im 
part a generic sameness to the incidents. 

The incidents described in the Acts, however, are so in 
dividual and so varied that they must come from actual life. 
The stories are true to life because they are so diverse, 
while all belong to one generic type. No one magician 
was exactly like any other, and no one magician in the 
Acts is like another. They varied widely in their degrees 
of knowledge, in their command of the occult Oriental 
power, and in the extent to which they admitted mere 
trickery and legerdemain to supplement their knowledge 
and powers. 

It is proposed, therefore, in the next chapters to look at 
each of the encounters from this point of view, and to show 
very briefly how individual each is, amid the generic type. 
Every one of these stories derives light from the recent study 
of ancient magic, and is far more full of meaning to those 
who are most familiar with the results of that study. 

Note. The possible existence of the higher type of 
magicians is illustrated on page 139. 



CHAPTER IX 

SIMON THE MAGICIAN 

THERE is a marked analogy between Simon of Samaria 
and Alexander of Abonoteichos in Paphlagonia, whose 
career of imposture is described by Lucian. There is, of 
course, a certain difference in individual character. Simon 
makes the impression of having been in rather less degree 
than Alexander a mere impostor and quack, and in rather 
greater degree a real possessor of power ; but Lucian aims 
at effect rather than at truth, while Luke aims at gaining 
effect through absolute truth. Yet those who would under 
stand the position of Simon should read the account of 
Alexander. 

Simon had gained great influence through certain 
wonders and miracles that he had wrought in Samaria. 
These struck the people with astonishment (vv. 9 and 1 1 ), 
and they were so deeply impressed that they regarded the 
magician as a manifestation of the divine power in human 
form. He was an epiphany (to use the Greek term), or 
avatar (to use the Hindu), of that Supreme Power, of which 
even the gods themselves are only partial and inferior en- 
visagements and embodiments. The Samaritans called him 
the ''Power of God which is called Great," a very remark 
able title. An excellent parallel occurs in a Lydian in 
scription : " There is one God in the heavens, great Men the 
Heavenly, the great power of the ever-living God "} 

1 Keil and Premerstein, " II Reise in Lydien," p. no, 
aQavdrov 6eov. 

("7) 



1 1 8 IX. Simon the Magician. 

The word " power " (Suz/a/u?) was technical in the lan 
guage of religion, superstition, and magic, and was one of 
the most common and characteristic terms in the language 
of pagan devotion. " Power " was what the devotees re 
spected and worshipped ; any exhibition of " power " must 
have its cause in something that was divine. 1 The wonders 
that Simon could perform were exhibitions of the power, 
through which he was marked out as being no ordinary 
magician, but the epiphany of the supreme power of God. 
The term "power" in plural was used to denote actions 
exhibiting power like that of God. The goddess who 
" makes impossibilities possible " is thanked in a Phrygian 
inscription. 2 The nearly synonymous term " authority " 
is mentioned later in this chapter. 

The word " great " also was in religion one of the most 
characteristic. Men prayed to any god whom they wor 
shipped as "great" and they revered his "greatness". 3 
The "greatness of God" was equivalent to the "power of 
God ". 

Simon in his turn was struck with astonishment at the 
effect exercised in Samaria by Philip, who swayed the minds 
of men in a way that any magician would have longed to 
equal. Such influence over the human mind was what 
magicians aimed at; through such influence men became 
their slaves and devoted servants. Simon's attention was 

1 It is unnecessary to give examples of the use of 5tW/m bearing on this 
subject in writers and inscriptions. See Buresch " aus Lydien," p. 113,3 
dedication to the goddess, f(v)\oyuv <rov rots 5iW/m. 

a " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," i. p. 153 f. 

3 Examples in " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 141 ff., and 
11 Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," I. p. 151. On gems we find /te-ya 
rb tfvojua 2,apdiri$os, and in Aristides, I. p. 467 (Dind.), ^.4yas 6 ' A.ffK\ijvi6s, an 
important parallel justifying the accepted text of Acts xix. 28, where I in 
clined to follow the reading in Codex Bezae. 



IX. Simon the Magician* 1 1 9 

arrested, and he came over to join the company of Philip, 
and believed, and was even baptized. He thus had the 
opportunity of observing in detail the proofs of Philip's 
power in the exhibitions of it which took place. 

In short, Simon recognized the power of God. The powers 
of this world recognized the true power of God. Even the 
devils believed and trembled. It is a universal feature in 
these encounters with magicians, that the latter with their 
sensitively organized physique always recognize the divine 
power inherent in the Apostles and messengers of God; 
they feel themselves in the presence of a power greater than 
their own. They are astonished, and the astonishment 
shows itself in different ways in the various incidents of 
this class. 

Simon for a time was apparently one of the faithful fol 
lowers of Philip ; but it appeared after a little that he was 
only a disciple and pupil anxious to learn the secret of this 
power and the way in which it could be wielded. He was 
eager to improve in his own line of life. He felt that he 
was in the presence of a more powerful magician, and he 
was ready to become a pupil in the hope of attaining to be 
an Adept. 

All the wonders which Philip wrought were in the way 
of healing ; people possessed with evil spirits and afflicted 
with palsy or lameness were cured. The want of all medical 
attention, and the utter ignorance of nursing and the care 
of the sick, constitute a most painful feature in the life of 
an eastern village or town at the present day. In Asiatic 
Turkey there are nowhere, except in a very few of the 
greatest cities, any trained doctors, or any one possessed 
even of rudimentary acquaintance with nursing or the art 
of medical attention ; that whole side of life is left to the 
Christian missionaries ; and even those who have no special 



I2O IX. Simon the Magician. 

training have learned in civilized life some small degree of 
medical knowledge which is useful and which helps to give 
them influence. Mere living in a rational and sanitary 
fashion may seem to us to require no medical skill ; but, 
when one beholds the character and consequences of the 
rude village life in Asiatic Turkey, one learns that it is the 
result of skill and the practical embodiment of science and 
experience. 

There is undoubtedly no surer or quicker way to the 
hearts of men than through some small help given to them 
or their families during sickness. 

Although Philip treated the sick, so far as we are told, 
only through their soul and their minds, and is not said to 
have given them any medical care in the strict and proper 
sense, yet there is implied in VIII. 7 some kindly attention 
to, and thought for, sufferers ; l and this is always a passport 
to the hearts of an uncared-for population. Amid the 
suffering caused in an Asiatic Turkish village through ignor 
ance and the utter lack of attention or nursing, nothing has 
more deeply impressed the present writer than the fact that 
a word of interest and kindliness with a letter of introduction, 
or even the simple advice to go to some American mission 
ary or some British consul's wife, trained as a nurse and 
able to advise, has elicited the warmest gratitude, shown in 
both deeds and words. 

The position of Philip in Samaria is best comprehended 
by those who have seen such social conditions as those 
which have just been described. 

This character was given to the Christian teaching and 
life from the outset. The Saviour's compassionate care for 

1 Mr. F. C. Eeles mentions to me a book by F. C. Puller, " The Anointing 
of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition," London, 1904, which I have not 



IX. Simon the Magician. 121 



the physical health of all sufferers is a remarkable trait 
remarkable when we consider how unprecedented it was. 
The careful study of physical health is, in truth, a feature 
of, and a factor in making, the higher civilization. It be 
longs to the most progressive races, and is almost wanting 
in the unprogressive nations. The Turks, in some respects 
a very kindly people, have generally treated their own sick 
and wounded with a callousness that seems to us brutal ; 
but it does not really imply that the intention is brutal : 
it is rather akin to the spirit that makes birds kill any 
sickly neighbour of their own species : the invalid cannot 
be tended and its existence weakens the whole community. 

The ancient Greeks gradually raised medicine to the 
rank of a true science, and among their achievements in 
the development of knowledge, the enthusiastic study of 
medicine by many of their race is perhaps the greatest 

The same character can be observed throughout the early 
centuries of Christian history ; see the remarks on the sub 
ject in " Pauline and other Studies in Christian History," 
pp. 380,402; "Luke the Physician and other Studies in 
the History of Religion," pp. 352, 404 f., and above all 
Harnack in " Texte und Untersuchungen," vill. ; also 
" Analecta Boll.," XII. p. 297,* and Puller quoted already. 

In Asia Minor and Greece proper, especially in the 
former, early religion was not wholly devoid of this interest. 
The importance of medicine is recognized in the medical 
skill of the god Asklepios, in the personification of Health, 
Hygieia, as a goddess, and in the attribution to many gods 
of a certain healing power. At the great religious centres 
of Asia Minor some sort of primitive medical advice and 
even medical care was imparted. The advice was often 

1 On treatment of diseases, see Prof. Macalister in Hastings' " Diet. Bib.," 
s.v. Medicine. 



122 IX. Simon the Magician- 

addressed to the mind and designed to work through faith, 
and it was sometimes of a puerile or even of a merely super 
stitious character ; but there are traces of better things. 
The statements of cures recorded by the sufferers x rarely 
mention any treatment that partakes even in the smallest 
degree of rational curative discipline ; they usually record 
only puerile forms of medical agency ; but such narratives, 
written by untrained and superstitious persons, must not 
be taken as fully trustworthy and complete. Those ignor 
ant people would record all that seemed to them to attest 
the direct work of the god or the goddess, and would pass 
over anything in the way of mere ordinary medical treat 
ment or advice as unimportant, because it did not glorify 
the divine power. To us the medical attention seems the 
really important matter, but to those devotees it was a 
negligible detail. 

That side of the early Greek and Anatolian religion 
tended to degenerate in the later age ; but the Greek medi 
cal authorities caught it up as a science, took it out of the 
domain of religion, and carried it to a high level of scientific 
achievement. 

There is no authority in what is recorded, and not the 
smallest probability, that Simon had hitherto been apprecia 
tive of this side of life ; but he now was struck with it when 
he saw the position and influence that Philip acquired. As 
the sequel proved, he did not understand that it was the 
appeal to the soul and spirit, and to the higher nature, of 
his hearers, that gave Philip his power over the people. He 
thought that Philip possessed an art and a system of know 
ledge which could be acquired and used by others. More 
over, it is not in itself improbable, and it is even suggested 

1 The records have been found at Epidaurus, and published by Cawadias. 



IX. Simon the Magician. 123 

by what is said, that at the beginning Simon was really 
affected in some degree by the sympathetic and human 
aspect of the situation in Samaria, though he was not able 
to maintain himself on this higher plane of conduct, but 
gradually relapsed to the ordinary level of the struggle for 
existence. It is very far from rare to find individuals and 
whole peoples who in the enthusiasm of a great crisis are 
able to rise to a high level of self-denying action ; but the 
hard thing is to live permanently on that plane. Considera 
tions of a lower class come in ; one must live ; it is a matter 
of life and death for us ; and gradually or suddenly there 
ensues a relapse to the old level and below it ; the last state 
is worse than the first. 

When Peter and John came to Samaria, and through their 
prayers and their hands the Divine Spirit was communicated 
to the Samaritan Christians, Simon perceived that the mar 
vellous powers which he had wondered at and admired 
when he saw them exercised by Philip could be readily 
transferred to others. He imagined that the visible process 
of the laying on of hands was the way of transferring 
the powers. He had no perception of the spiritual change, 
the transformation of heart and soul, that had occurred in 
the recipients. He had himself undergone no such change, 
and he did not know that it had taken place in others. He 
fancied that the Apostles, being possessed of such remark 
able powers, were able further, by mere imposition of hands, 
to make these powers pass into those to whom they chose 
to impart them. 

Now the acquisition of power like this had always been 
Simon's object. He thought that these teachers belonged 
to the same class as himself, and that they aimed at influence 
and a career, with wealth as the ultimate reward. They 
possessed a knowledge and a power that he coveted, and 



124 IX- Simon the Magician. 



he proposed to learn from them at a great fee, 1 so that they 
might pass him rapidly over the earlier stages and carry 
him quickly to the highest stage of initiation. He regarded 
this as a fair business proposal. He was willing to pay 
well for all he asked. " Give me too this power (literally, 
position of authority), 2 that on whomsoever I lay my hands 
he may receive the Holy Spirit." He had caught the lan 
guage of the new teaching ; but he had no conception what 
was the meaning of that term, " Holy Spirit," which he 
used. His employment of the term "authority" proves 
this : the point is important, and needs careful notice. 

This Greek word, rendered variously as " authority" 
or " power " (ef ovcria) 3 is frequently, used in magical docu 
ments, and Simon employs it precisely in the same fashion 
as a magician would, when he asks Peter and John to give 
him the same authority and power that they possessed 
(VIII. 19). This same Greek word was used to translate 
both the annual potestas that was entrusted to the Emperors 
(containing the whole authority and power of the Roman 
tribunes), and the imperium of the Roman consuls : it indi 
cates the full powers granted by the ultimate sovereign 
authority to an individual. The Roman tribunes were en 
trusted with that extraordinarily wide and overriding 
power : any single tribune could step in and arrest by a word 



1 The Greek says only xp^ a< ra, moneys ; but the sense of the context 
implies that the sum was large in proportion to ordinary fees paid by pupils 
to teachers. 

2 The word fovffia is used here and universally in the same sense : so for 
example in r Corinthians xi. 10 the veil is the authority of the woman. A 
veiled woman is a power in the East : unveiled, she is a thing despised 
whom anyone may insult; see " Cities of St. Paul," p. 203. 

3 In its more characteristic usage, especially in Roman time, it denotes 
legal and constitutional power ; but Thucydides has it in the sense of might 
as distinguished from right. 



IX. Simon the Magician. 125 

the action of the highest magistrates in order to guard the 
rights of the humblest citizen : only in certain circumstances 
the imperium could, in its turn, override even the tribunes. 
Such was the " authority" of a great magician. 

Peter's reply, which is too familiar to need quotation in all 
its length, and which must not be weakened by excision 
of parts, was almost incomprehensible to Simon. That it 
was a refusal and an indignant refusal, and that nothing 
could be gained by offering a higher fee at this moment, he 
understood clearly ; but the nature of his fault and the 
reason for the Apostles' indignation he utterly failed to 
comprehend. Their thought and their life moved on a 
plane to which he could not rise. As before, so still he 
thought that the power lay entirely in the Apostles ; * they 
could help if they were willing ; the authority to bind and 
to loose was with them ; the people with whom they dealt 
were mere automata to be moved hither and thither as 
they chose. " Pray ye for me to the Lord, that none of the 
things which ye have spoken come upon me." His own 
soul and nature did not matter in his estimation ; the 
prayers of Peter and John were all-important ; and there 
can be no doubt that he thought of their prayers as similar 
in nature to the charms and incantations of his old magic. 

The relation of Simon to the really Christianized converts 
among the Samaritans recalls to my memory the experience 
and testimony of a friend, a foreigner, a Catholic, and a 
distinguished scholar, who spent a considerable time in 
the Belgian Congo investigating the facts of the rubber 

1 Though Peter alone speaks, as the leading spirit of the pair, yet action 
and power were common to both. The plural is used throughout, both in 
verses 17 to 19 and in 24 f. Indeed we must always remember that John 
was still very young : this is an essential factor in the situation, too often 
forgotten. 



126 IX. Simon the Magician. 

trade. Expressing high admiration of the Baptist mission 
aries, he said that the Catholic missionaries made a hundred 
converts where the Baptists made one ; but the one was a 
real convert, a man of changed character, while the hundred 
remained savages as they were before. Simon the converted 
remained in his innermost nature exactly the same as he 
had been before. 

In this first recorded collision with a practiser of magic 
arts, the strongest stress is laid on the utter incapacity of 
the magician to understand the nature and character of the 
Christian teaching, on the essential and inevitable antagon 
ism between him and it, and on the indignant contempt with 
which his proposals are rejected and he himself practically 
expelled from the Church. Not merely was it advisable to 
give strong expression to this antagonism on the first occa 
sion : it was necessary also to do so for another reason. 
At the first general meeting of the Church the outward 
phenomena accompanying possession by the Holy Spirit 
(Acts II. 3 f., 8, 11-13, 15-18) show unmistakable analogy 
to certain phenomena that occur at a " spiritualistic stance " : 
the sound as of a wind pervading the house is characteristic, 
and the other phenomena are similar. 1 In such phenomena 
as those of " spiritualism " lay the powers of the magicians 
(as has already been said). The analogy in certain external 
respects should not be denied, but also it should not be 
misunderstood or exaggerated. 

The incident of Simon the Magian furnished the means 
to correct any misunderstanding. The analogy is practic 
ally acknowledged in the narrative, for Simon finds that 
the Apostles do far more effectively what he would like 

1 1 take this from a letter which Andrew Lang sent me on the subject. I 
doubt not that he has said the same in some of his books, but cannot quote. 



IX. Simon the Magician. 127 

to be able to do himself. Then this fancied similarity is 
shown to be external and unreal. 

It is, however, characteristic of Luke's method that this 
acknowledgment and antagonism are not formally ex 
pressed in the way of reflection or exposition by the his 
torian. They appear only in the acts and words which he 
records. He does not obtrude his own opinion and judg 
ment. He leaves the facts to speak for themselves. 

In the second place, Simon's full recognition of the 
superior power of the Christian teachers must be noticed. 
Other magicians recognize the same fact, but they behave 
in very different ways and give expression to it in diverse 
forms, as we see in the remaining cases (on which see the 
following chapter). 

This acknowledgment by the magician of the Christians' 
power, however, had a dangerous side. The populace saw 
that the magicians recognized an analogy between them 
selves and the Christians, acknowledging the superiority of 
their rivals. On this was founded the popular idea that 
all Christian teachers were " astrologers, diviners, and 
physicians ".* Hence in this case where the analogy is most 
fully recognized by belief and baptism, the antagonism is 
most pointedly expressed. 

Simon, as a believer and disciple, tries to buy the teach 
ing. None of the other wizards and soothsayers take this 
attitude. Each tries a different way: one fights vainly 
against it, some try to steal it, one gently submits. 

As the magical use of the Greek term has been touched 
on in this Chapter, a misconception ought to be guarded 
against. It is not to be believed that in I Corinthians 
VIII. 9 this word efoucrta carries with it any implication of 

1 " Script. Hist. Aug. Saturnini," vn. 4, mathematici, haruspices, medici : 
compare ib., vm. 3 quoted and discussed in the previous chapter. 



128 IX. Simon the Magician. 

magical influence or stands in any relation to magical 
usage ; l and in this opinion Prof. H. A. A. Kennedy en 
tirely agrees and confirms me. This is one of many cases 
where Christian expression used as convenient and even 
necessary for its purposes a word which was involved in one 
or several pagan connexions and usages. One might as 
well say that the salvation of which Paul spoke was the same 
thing that the pagans were praying for and trying to secure 
by magical rites, as that the " power " which enabled a 
strong-minded brother to eat without harm of meat offered 
to idols was in any way the same as the power given 
through magical arts. Paul means the moral power of the 
strong mind. How completely the modern scholars who 
bring him down to the level of pagan superstition and 
magic fail to comprehend the quality of his thought ! 2 

The same holds of many other cases in which the same 
Greek word egovaia is used to indicate the power over 
evil spirits, as in Luke IV. 36. There is a notable analogy 
between the Christians' power and the magicians' over those 
evil forces, but the differences are equally marked : it is only 
the immediate and external purpose that is the same, viz. 
exorcism, while the means are different in kind and in 
manner of operation. 

The belief in demoniac possession is here brought into 
relation to the magicians. It was evidently the cures 
wrought in cases of this class that were most likely to affect 
and astonish Simon. This belief was a strong factor in 
social life in western Asia, and it still is a factor in the life 

1 It is rendered "liberty" in the Revised Version, but this is a mistrans 
lation of the Greek tov<rla. The margin has " power ". 

2 On the use of such pagan terms as salvation, etc., in a new Christian 
sense by the earliest Christian writers, see " The Teaching of Paul in Terms 
of the Present Day," pp. 95, etc., and below, Chapter xm. 



IX. Simon the Magician. 129 

of inner Turkey at the present day. There is much need 
for a discussion of the whole subject by competent authority, 
which is impossible without medical training. It is beyond 
doubt that many ailments which seem to the Orientals to 
be of an unusual or abnormal kind are explained as due to 
possession by a devil or by devils, though physicians would 
certainly class them under some recognized category of 
disease ; but the question must be raised whether it would 
be safe or justifiable to hold that all cases of so-called de 
moniac possession could be explained in this way. 

Deafness, dumbness, and other defects of the senses, seem 
to be classed as possession in Luke IX. 39, Mark IX. 17 and 
25, Matthew XII. 22; but although an individual case of 
dumbness is so classed, it is not clear that every dumb man 
would have been declared by the popular voice to be 
possessed by a devil. That seems highly improbable 
a priori, and quite inconsistent with the account given by 
Mark IX. 17: it is also not confirmed by anything that I 
have learned about current beliefs in Asiatic Turkey. The 
essential feature in the case described by Mark was not the 
dumbness, but the abnormal behaviour of the boy. 

While I do not presume from the little I have seen to 
make any positive statements, yet on the ground of what I 
have heard and what I saw in the one case that came under 
my own observation, I should be inclined to think that the 
essential feature is an effect produced on the mind and 
nature of the sufferer, whereby he seems given over wholly 
to the dominion of wickedness, doing and suffering evil 
without any good impulse striving to counteract the wicked 
intent, abandoned absolutely to the sway of maleficence and 
malevolence and apparently lost to all human feeling, and 
bereft in an extraordinary and appalling degree of even the 
outward appearance of humanity, and at the same time 

9 



130 IX. Simon the Magician. 

himself suffering pain in his own person from the power of 
evil in many ways. In the case that I saw, the demoniac 
(as he was called) had probably suffered injustice, and he 
was ultimately cured (as was said) by a strolling magician ; 
but we learned later from the magician that he had cured 
the sufferer through rousing the hope of vengeance in his 
mind. Thus he taught the man to prefer the future to the 
present, and restored the sway of reason in his mind. 
Even though the effect came through a dangerous and 
malevolent motive, yet at least the result was that the 
man could balance one consideration against another, and 
endure the present evil in the hope of compensation here 
after. He was restored in this way to human semblance, 
and ceased to be wholly under the dominion of one single 
hideous impulse which would not even have been vengeance 
on the wrongdoer. 1 

Cases of abnormality, like those described, are specially 
open to treatment addressed to the mind ; and many sur 
prising cures, such as astonished Simon, might be wrought 
in this way by a powerful and impressive benevolent 
personality like Philip. Whether this is the whole, or even 
the most important part of these cures, I would not venture 
to dogmatize ; but at least it puts us on the right way to 
understand the subject, as I venture to think. 

Exorcists were an order in the early Church, and the 
name lasted long, but their functions were gradually re 
stricted to mere ceremonial of a general kind without refer 
ence to the curing of individuals. 

The people then believed, as they do now, in the frequency 
of demoniac possession. At that time the magician's trade 

1 The demoniac was trying to tear away a young girl, his daughter, from 
her mother, and as the villagers said and believed, he was going to carry her 
off to the hills and murder her. 



IX. Simon the Magician. 131 

as a practical business lay to no small degree in this class 
of cases. At the present day the two chief lines of business 
for a magician in a remote Turkish city are said to be in 
love-charms and exorcism. 

The prevalence of the mental phenomena that produce 
this belief is caused by the ill-balanced nature of the 
sufferer. The almost total lack of home training for the 
child is in fault. So long as he does not annoy his elders 
too much, he is left to the freedom of his own caprice. 
When he does provoke them, he is punished with extraor 
dinary incapacity. At Djenin in Palestine I looked down 
over a garden, in which a father was trying to chastise a 
little boy, and failing to inflict on him any suffering. The 
boy screamed and writhed, but only from passion, not from 
pain. He was being punished, not for wrong-doing, but 
because his father was cross ; and he knew that this was so. 
A child grows like a weed untended, as nature ministers 
the power of growth. He is taught no self-control, until 
it is forced on him in the school of poverty and hard work. 
Those of better nature, who after all are the great majority, 
learn for themselves in a remarkable way. Those who are 
unbalanced or evil by nature degenerate often until they are 
said to be possessed by the devil, and seem to be in fits of 
passion wholly given over unresistingly to the domination 
of evil. 

Note (pp. 114, 127). It is possible that the same danger 
was guarded against by the Saviour, when he forbade the 
devils to recognize him publicly, Mark I. 34, III. 12, Luke 
IV. 33, 41. See below, p. 310. 



CHAPTER X 

PAUL AND THE MAGICIANS 

THE germ of all that has been said in this present book 
regarding the magicians in the Acts was stated formerly 
in discussing 1 the conflict between Paul and the Magian 
Etymas Bar-Jesus at Paphos ; and it is not necessary in this 
chapter to repeat any part of the study of that scene, as 
there given. All that was there said may be assumed ; but 
something may be added. 

This is the only case in which the natural antagonism 
between the Christian teachers and the magicians is carried 
to a direct conflict and trial of strength. Bar- Jesus pits 
himself against Paul, and forthwith his strength is withered 
up. The power of the Spirit, looking through the eyes of 
Paul, pierces him to the soul and temporarily paralyses the 
nervous system so far as vision is concerned. 2 

That a stroke like this, though marvellous, is physically 
possible, I cannot doubt. We may be sure that a person 
who made his livelihood in such ways as Bar-Jesus, possessed 
a sensitive temperament, and was peculiarly susceptible to 
the influence that flashed through the gaze of Paul. Those 
who have studied the range of psychic phenomena could 
certainly quote cases quite as wonderful. 

What was peculiar about this case was that Paul and the 
other Christian teachers made no claim to have any power 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," pp. 73-81. 

2 A physician would express this in a more scientific way. 

(132) 



X. Paul and the Magicians. 133 

in themselves : it was the Divine Spirit that spoke and 
acted through them. Unless we apprehend this funda 
mental fact clearly, and hold to it throughout, we shall never 
understand the Acts of the Apostles. Pagan contempor 
aries, and the populace especially, never grasped this : they 
thought that Paul was here performing a feat similar in 
character to the wonderful acts by which magicians aston 
ished the crowd, but surpassing even the most marvellous 
of their deeds. They ignorantly regarded Paul as the 
greatest of the magicians. Out of this popular fancy 
grew the legend of the anti-Pauline party, identifying Paul 
with Simon of Samaria, who played such a mean part in 
contact with the Hebrew Peter. 

Also, we shall never understand the personal achieve 
ments of Paul, unless we appreciate the power of his eyes, 
through which his soul and the Spirit spoke. The scene 
in the Council, as described above, 1 cannot be properly 
conceived until we feel how much is implied in the state 
ment that Paul " fixed his eyes on the members of the 
Council ". The memory of Paul's eyes lasted in Asia 
Minor, and the tradition there during the second century 
described him as having at times the face of an angel : 2 
an angel is the bearer of the Divine power. 

To the ordinary pagan observer at that time the scene 
would undoubtedly appear like an exhibition by Paul of his 
own marvellous command of magic power. This was a real 
danger to the Christians; and Luke guards against the 
consequences (which as he knew had occurred in some 
degree before the time when he was writing) by bringing 
out so strongly the essential antagonism between the Chris- 

1 See p. 90 f. 

2 The description (quoted in " The Church in the Roman Empire before 
170," p. 32) is from the Acta of Paul and Thekla. 



134 X. Paul and the Magicians. 

tian and the magical intention and spirit. It was, however, 
not easy to disabuse the people and the government of a 
fixed idea. To them both Paul and Bar- Jesus belonged to 
the class of "wandering scholars" 1 who were so numerous 
in the Roman time, often men educated in the Universities 
of the East, who sought a career and a livelihood in the 
world and went about till they could find or make a place 
for themselves. The University of Tarsus, in particular, 
sent out a large number of scholars, aspiring youths from 
the Eastern provinces, especially Cilicia, Cappadocia, and 
Syria, who could find no career at home, where culture was 
backward and education had hardly touched the masses. 
As Strabo tells us, many students from the countries which 
furnished the clientele of the Tarsian University went abroad 
to study and often they remained abroad. 2 Paul was under 
stood to be one of those scholars, and those who knew 
about his birth and early life would call him one of the 
many Tarsian aspirants, and would think that he was seek 
ing to play the same part in the entourage of the Procon 
sul Sergius Paullus that Athenodorus the Tarsian did with 
Augustus. 8 

It must be set to the credit of the Governor that he did 
not retain this view permanently. He wished to know the 
truth and to keep his mind open ; and his intelligent curio 
sity led him to send for the two "wandering scholars," and 
to hear what sort of teaching they had to offer. He began 
then by holding the ordinary popular view ; but he soon 
changed when he listened. Precisely how much is im- 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 75 ; " The Cities of St. Paul," p. 218. 

2 The account which Strabo gives is usually mistranslated, as if he said 
that Tarsus was superior to Athens and Alexandria. On the right interpre 
tation see the " Cities of St. Paul," p. 232 f. 

* The typical example of Tarsian wandering scholars is Athenodorus, the 
tutor and friend of Augustus : " Cities of St. Paul," pp. 216-28. 



X . Paul and the Magicians. 135 

plied in saying that " he believed " it is not easy to say ; 
but at least it must imply that a very marked impression 
was produced on his mind and character. Luke does not 
waste words. On this point more is said in the following 
chapter xil. 

This was the person that Luke introduces as " a man of 
understanding," i.e. an educated, intelligent man, who did 
not judge from superficial appearance alone, like the un 
thinking crowd. The fact that he considered Bar- Jesus 
worthy of a place among his friends and companions must 
be taken as a sufficient proof that the latter deserved to be 
ranked among the higher class of magicians, who had some 
interest in science and the investigation of the normal pro 
cesses of nature. So much we may say with confidence : 
all beyond that is matter of conjecture. Bar-Jesus was 
regarded by the Paphian populace as one of the magicians, 
and Paul was classed as another of the same type after his 
striking exhibition of power. The populace does not 
usually make delicate distinctions. No serious effect is 
said to have been produced on anyone at Paphos except 
the Roman Proconsul, " a man of understanding ". So far 
as the people are concerned the visit to Paphos must be 
regarded as practically fruitless in Luke's estimation. 

At Ephesus many Jews, including the sons of Sceva, of a 
leading priestly family, were aware of the power which Paul 
had, calming the passions, and curing the diseases, of many 
sufferers. It was a situation like that in which Philip and 
Peter were placed in Samaria. Yet how different is the 
working out of the entanglement! The sons of Sceva 
watched Paul to discover the secret of his influence, and 
detected that it seemed to lie in naming the Name of Jesus 
over the poor sufferers. They tacitly acknowledged the 
power, but they were not, like Simon, willing to pay a fair 



136 X. Paul and the Magicians. 

market price (as he thought) for the knowledge ; they tried 
to steal it. They thought they had found the secret ; but 
the Name was valueless without the faith that lay behind 
it ; and when they tried to use the power of the Name, they 
only exposed themselves to disgrace and discomfiture. 

Other magicians in Ephesus frankly confessed their fault, 
abjured their practices, and burned their books of formulae. 
They resembled Simon in his first stage of conduct, and we 
hear no more about them. Did any of them go on to 
believe and to seek baptism ? We know not ; but their 
action is quoted mainly to reinforce the contention of Luke, 
that Christian teaching was the enemy of magic. 

An instructive account is given in the Acts XVI. 16-18 
of the slave-girl, who brought much gain to her owners by 
sooth-saying. There is little to add to the considerations 
stated in an earlier work. 1 The slave recognized forthwith 
the superior spiritual power that breathed through Paul. 
Her naturally sensitive temperament, 2 trained to even greater 
sensitiveness by the daily experiences of her life, was aware 
of Paul's character and influence. 

Here, again, the same danger confronted Paul. The 
populace would at once interpret the relation between the 
sooth-sayer and him as the competition between two of a 
trade. The very words which the slave-girl used suggested 
this to the people : " These men are slaves of the Most High 
God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation ". All those 
pagans were praying and making vows and offerings for 
salvation ; 3 their religious acts, their superstitions, and 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," pp. 215 ff. 

2 Only a person with a highly sensitive nervous system can make any suc 
cess in her way of life. 

3 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 94 i., etc. ; 
see also chapter xin. below. 



X. Paul and the Magicians. 137 

their recourse to magic rites, 1 were very often directed to 
attain salvation ; various methods of attaining were pointed 
out to them in reply to their requests. The sooth-sayer in 
dicates that Paul and his companions are declarers of " a 
way of salvation ". She speaks of them, too, as " slaves of 
the Most High God," a title for the Supreme Divine power 
used among the pagans, and specially characteristic of that 
mixture of Jewish and pagan religious custom which was 
common at the time. 

The cries with which she followed Paul through the 
streets were, therefore, troublesome, and constituted an im 
pediment to his success. As he was obviously not a priest 
of any recognized religion, her words were by the mob taken 
to show that he was a minister of superstition or of magic. 
Accordingly, after she had done this "for many days," 
Paul in vexation turned on her, and spoke, not to her, but 
to the evil spirit that possessed her, " I charge thee in the 
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her ". Instantly 2 the 
spirit and her power left her. 

The story is reported by Luke for several reasons, but 
especially it serves to disprove the charge of magic made 
against the Christians. 

This poor girl was aware of Paul's power ; but she neither 
tried to steal it like the sons of Sceva, nor sought to learn 
it as a pupil, like Simon. She had the simple mind of a 

a M. H. Hubert in the article quoted at the beginning of the preceding 
chapter mentions " Salvation " as one of the objects of magic. 

2 Literally " the same hour " : the ancients had no shorter division of time 
than the hour, viz. the time that the shadow on the dial took to pass from 
one mark to the next (i.e. one-twelfth of the sun's visible passage across the 
heavens) : hence this phrase is used (as in xxn. 13) where we should say 
" on the instant ". Compare Horace, " Sat." I, I. 7. A good example lies 
in the comparison of Rev. xvn. 12 with the expression of the same thought 
by Paul in 2 Cor. iv. 17 ; see " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present 
Day," p. 57- 



138 X. Paul and the Magicians. 

young girl : she spoke what her sensitive nature perceived. 
She sought nothing for herself. She was only the slave 
and the chattel of others. Had she learned any way of 
greater power, it would have benefited only her owners ; 
but it was apparently no such consideration that weighed 
with her. She is represented as simple and direct in con 
duct, acting without ulterior aims. One cannot but feel 
strong sympathy for this poor benighted soul in her helpless 
and hopeless condition as the slave of greedy owners. 

The suggestion has been made that the owners of this 
slave-girl were a man and his wife. This seems to be in 
consistent with ancient custom and with the situation as 
Luke describes it. The owners lodged a charge against 
Paul and Silas. They seized the two missionaries, and 
dragged them before the magistrates. They claimed to be 
Romans, who were being wronged by contemptible Jews. 
Action like this is quite inconsistent with the part that a 
woman would play in a Roman colony ; and we must sup 
pose that the owners were a small company who had 
clubbed their money to carry on a slave-dealing business. 

It used to be maintained that the contest between Paul 
and Bar-Jesus was invented as a pendant to the story of 
Peter and Simon the Magian ; as Peter in old legend had 
triumphed over a magician, so Paul also must have his own 
triumph. Only prepossession with a theory could make 
critics so blind to the higher qualities and purposes of a 
historian as to imagine stuff like this. All the differ 
ences between the one incident and the other are vital to 
the historian's purpose. He remembers the second because 
it was different. Had it been a mere repetition, it would 
have been valueless to him. Moreover, the author is not 
content with making his hero (according to the theory) 
vanquish one magician; he makes him convince a large 



X. Paul and the Magicians. 139 

number, and break their power. Peter does not vanquish 
a magician ; he simply rebukes him for his inability to 
understand Christian truth ; there is no contest of power at 
Samaria : Simon was a humble pupil, and an unsatisfactory 
one. 

All these magician incidents are equally essential to the 
historian's purpose. Their variety in details makes their 
agreement in effect all the more telling ; out of the great 
variety emerges the one invariable result that Christian 
teaching hated and conquered and destroyed magic, and 
that the popular charge against the Christians was mere 
calumny. 

Note (Ch. VIII-XI). The possibility that, as we have 
stated, some ancient magicians had a higher character and 
nobler aims than a mere livelihood gained by any means, 
is supported by the following extract from "The Peri 
odical," Oxford, 1914, p. 90: 

" In ' The Book of the Key of Solomon ' just published 
by Mr. Milford supposed to have served as the oracle of 
all sorcerers throughout history occurs a paragraph show 
ing that the magic art was looked upon as a serious oc 
cupation. It is thus translated by Professor H. Gollancz : 

" ' I beg and command any one into whose hands this 
compilation may fall, that he will give it to no man unless 
he be of a retiring disposition, able to keep a secret, ener 
getic in the performance of this kind of work ; and I adjure 
him by the Living God, the Creator of the Universe, that 
in the same manner as he would guard his own soul, he will 
guard this book, and not reveal it to such as are unjust. 
And should he not listen (to this admonition) I place my 
supplication before Him who has graciously imparted this 
knowledge to me, that He shall not suffer him to prosper 
in all the actions and desires which he seeks to bring about. 
Amen, May this be His will.' " 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MAGI AT THE BIRTH OF JESUS 

IN one passage of the New Testament, the word Magian or 
magician appears in an incident where a totally different 
connotation is popularly attached to it from that which it 
bears in all the other cases. Matthew II. I says : " Now 
when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days 
of Herod the king, behold, Magians from the east came to 
Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews?" In making up their conception of the magicians 
in the New Testament and their encounters with Christi 
anity, modern scholars usually omit this passage and judge 
of them on the other passages alone, while in this one case 
it is assumed that the name must refer to a different class 
of persons. 

That procedure is unscientific. There is no ground for 
thinking that the word was applied to two totally different 
classes of persons, or that Matthew has in mind one of the 
two classes, while Luke thinks only of the other. The 
same class is meant in the New Testament in every case, 
and our conception of its character must be widened so as 
to embrace the whole record regarding them. In fact Luke 
uses the term Magian only of Bar-Jesus. Simon of Sam 
aria is not called a Magian, though the verb and the ver 
bal noun * are applied to his way of living and acting. In 
respect of the other dealers in sorcery and sooth-saying 



, Acts vin. 9, [tayia., vm. ir. 
(I 4 0) 



XI. The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 141 

none of these words is employed ; but terms are used, which 
indicate other sub-species of the class that we have roughly 
called magician. 

In our view it is necessary to embrace all these incidents 
under the same class. In Matthew we notice that the 
Magians were familiar with Jewish books. That is known 
to have been a characteristic of ancient magic : it was a 
mixture of ideas and forms and names caught from various 
religions, including the Hebrew, which was acknowledged 
to be specially powerful. The acknowledgment was ap 
parently not confined to votaries of the Hebrew faith, but 
was general in the world where the Hebrews were known. 
Jews were, by natural character, likely to be adepts in the 
art of utilizing for their livelihood the weaknesses of human 
nature : hence Jews of low character, even though they were 
of high birth, appear among the magicians or exorcists at 
Ephesus. 1 

The Magians were astrologers. They watched the stars 
and saw the present and the future written in the heavens. 
This again is one of the characteristics of the class of 
magicians. 

They were also prophets, in the sense that the divine 
power spoke directly to their souls. Bar-Jesus was a 
" false prophet," which implies that he had turned the 
belief that one should listen watchfully to catch the divine 
voice into a means of individual gain : he had degraded the 
best thing in life to the worst. The term " false prophet " 
does not mean that he did not try to do and to be what 
prophets did and were ; but that he took away the spirit 
and the truth out of the prophet's life. He was a prophet 

1 At Ephesus QopKurrdt and T& irepiepya vpd^avres are the terms used. At 
Philippi the slave-girl was a sort of prophetess (/icwTevo/ievTj) or diviner 



142 XL The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 

who had lost, or never got, the spirit that makes the prophet ; 
but he wore the outward semblance of a prophet. 1 So the 
false brethren of Galatians II. 3 were in outward guise and 
profession Christians, but lacked the spirit and the soul. 

The theory that the story in Matthew is an idle, empty 
myth, I set aside at once as totally irrational, although it 
is still widely accepted, and the difficulty is to get people 
to regard the tale itself as worth discussion. A myth is not 
idle and empty, but is well worthy of careful consideration : 
probably, however, those who call it an idle myth mean 
that it is a mere piece of popular gossip, but they do not 
explain how it has found its way into a book which is now 
regarded by every reasonable scholar as a serious attempt 
to make a trustworthy record. 2 

There seem to be only two views possible for an unpre 
judiced and rational thinker to entertain. One is that the 
story is the expression of a certain belief regarding the re 
lation of this great event, the Birth of the Saviour, to a 
certain class of persons who exercised a distinct influence in 
the ancient world, and to a certain accumulated store of 
ancient wisdom and teaching which was supposed to be in 
their possession ; and that this belief clothed itself in mythic 
form during the gradual growth of a body of Christian 
tradition in the first century, under the influence of a 
creative impulse due to half-conscious speculation about the 
cosmic importance of such an event. Some who maintain 
this theory might hold that the Birth of Jesus was a real 

1 In i Corinthians xn. 2 Paul says, if I rightly catch the meaning, that 
there was a kind of inspiration in the faith of dumb idols, and that this in 
spiration produced a sort of prophecy, which lacked the real divine Spirit. 

3 Dr. Moffatt seems (if I rightly interpret his obscure and brief reference) 
to regard it as a " free composition," p. 249, having a historical nucleus in 
" speculation amongst Babylonian astrologers " about the " conjunction of 
the planets Jupiter and Saturn," which took place in 6 B.C. 



XL The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 143 

event, some that it never occurred ; but that is immaterial 
so far as the possible growth of a belief and a myth is con 
cerned. 

The other possible view is that the narrative is an account 
of a real incident, which was remembered and recorded 
because it expressed an important truth. Many things 
were forgotten, as less important ; but this was remembered 
owing to what was implied in it. 

The purpose of the present chapter is to advocate the 
second view. It is, however, evident that the meaning 
which was implied in the event, and which led to its being 
recorded, is open to the other interpretation ; and that the 
deep truth which lay in and under the facts might very 
well be regarded as a growing and creative idea in the early 
Church, gradually working itself out in the myth. I do not 
know at present anything that can absolutely disprove this 
better form of the myth theory ; and the theory is likely to 
commend itself to many, who are repelled by the fact 
that Matthew alone mentions the story. In this form 
the myth-theory is totally distinct from the view which we 
have unhesitatingly rejected, that the story is a piece of 
empty gossip. It holds that the belief in the world-wide 
importance of the event sought expression in a narrative of 
acts done by representative personages, i.e. personages who 
exist to give expression to a true idea : the truth is real, but 
the acts are only created in order to body forth the idea to 
a public which preferred the concrete to the abstract, and 
disliked mere philosophic statement as alien to its character 
and incomprehensible to its way of thinking. The myth is 
the more concrete expression of philosophic truth. 

From the view which we have taken in all the chapters 
on this subject, it follows that, in the Gospel of Matthew, 
the Magians must be taken as representing, or rather as 



144 XI- The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 

being the embodiment of, the hereditary store of knowledge 
in the Oriental world, as knowledge was at that time. 

The customary translation "Wise Men," for the name 
Magians in Matthew II. I, will suit the purport of this 
chapter well. The " Wise Men " are examples of the best 
type of the ancient magician. In them the devotion to 
knowledge and the interest in truth are the most prominent 
characteristics. They appear in this one incident, they 
show this supreme quality, and then they disappear. If 
the narrative about Simon of Samaria had concluded with 
the statement in Acts VIII. 1 3, that he " also believed ; and 
being baptized he continued with Peter," then we should 
have unhesitatingly classed him with "Wise Men". 

Now, as we have observed in all the cases of contact with 
the new Faith, the magicians recognize intuitively the power 
of the Spirit that acts through the new teachers. Accord 
ingly in Matthew II. I the Magians became aware, through 
their own previous investigation into truth, that the new 
power which must come had come at last into the world, 
and they travelled far to do homage to the king. They did 
not fully comprehend the truth, but they believed without 
understanding. 

The Wise Men are the embodiment of the past : they 
welcome and worship the future. Their visit embodies 
in concrete form and action, the great truth that the birth 
of Jesus was the completion of past history and the starting- 
point of a new age. The expression is Oriental and 
Hebraic in type, not philosophic and abstract. The best 
of the extra- Judaic world welcomes its new-born Saviour, 
but being outside of Judaism it does not fully comprehend. 

It is not right, nor is it implied by the terms of the story, 
to suppose (as is sometimes done) that the Wise Men when 
watching the heavens in their astrological pursuits saw some 



XL The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 145 

wholly new and unexpected star, or other astronomic 
phenomenon such as a conjunction of planets, and recog 
nized that this must portend the birth of a king of the Jews. 
Such an explanation does not fulfil the conditions of the 
story. It is clearly implied in the tale that the Wise Men 
had other knowledge from other sources, making them ex 
pect the coming of some special king of the Jews, whose 
birth was an event of universal interest to the world. There 
is implied both a certain store of traditional knowledge, and 
a certain expectation of the cosmic event. It was not the 
birth of any common king of the Jews that roused their 
adoration and prompted their journey. It was some special 
king whose advent was looked for by them and by all that 
studied history. 

The belief was widespread in the world at that time or 
earlier that the Epiphany, or coming of a god in human 
form on earth, was imminent, in order to save the human 
race from the destruction which the sins of mankind deserved 
and had brought nigh. The world was perishing in its 
crimes, and only the coming of the God Himself could save 
it. This belief can be observed in various forms during the 
years that preceded. It prompted the Fourth Eclogue of 
Virgil and it is seen in the Second Ode of Horace. To 
them it means the glory and the triumph and the perman 
ence of Rome. 1 The West shall rule over the East. A 
new war of Troy shall be fought, and a new European leader 
shall conquer the representative city of Asia, and shall re 
strain the raids of the Median cavalry. That is the " Sal 
vation " which Rome has to offer, as is shown in chapter 



1 On the ideas which Virgil derived from Isaiah through a Greek transla 
tion and incorporated in that Eclogue, see the last chapter of Part II in the 
present book. 

IO 



146 XI. The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 

XV., where the real nature of that paternal government is 
described as it worked itself out in history. 

This belief in the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the 
Conqueror, was universal among the Jews for a long time 
before and after the birth of Christ, and was one of the re 
markable features in that strange people, which drew the 
attention of the Roman historian in describing them. 
Tacitus speaks of the general conviction among the Jews 
before the great rebellion of A.D. 67-70, a conviction based 
on the ancient books of their priests, that the East should 
revive and that men sprung from Judea should rule the 
world. 1 

Suetonius mentions the same belief, evidently deriving it 
from the same ultimate source as Tacitus ; 2 but points out 
what was in his opinion the real meaning of the prophecy, 
viz. that one coming from Judea, to wit Vespasian, should 
obtain the empire of the world. This was an explanation 
after the event of a prediction which had been current in the 
East before the event. 

These Roman authorities show what were the forms in 
which this expectation was current in the pagan world dur 
ing the century from Virgil to Vespasian. In the Hebrew 
prophecy the restoration of power to the East, and the end 
of the domination of the West, were implied ; but the 
Romans understood, and Suetonius carefully explains, that 
the real meaning was the domination of the West over the 
East. All, however, interpret the prophecy as referring to 
the great struggle of East and West, that immemorial con 
flict which reaches through all history from the beginning 

1 Tacitus, "Annals," v. 13: fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique ludaea 
rerum poterentur. 

2 Suetonius, " Vesp.," 4 : esse in fatis ut eo tempore ludaea profecti rerum 
potirentur. 



XL The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 147 

down to the present day, and which must continue in the 
future. 

The Magi in the East saw the star, the rising of the 
Morning Star 1 of hope ; and they, of course, accepted the 
Oriental interpretation. An Asiatic king, a king of the 
Jews, had arisen in the world. That the East was struggling 
against European domination is a great historical fact. 
Mithradates derived all his importance from being the 
champion of Asia in the long conflict. He had been de 
stroyed ; but that was only one stage in the struggle. The 
Magi eagerly welcomed the child, who was born King of 
the Jews. 

It is a narrow view, very different from the truth and the 
kingdom of Christ. Yet the disciples themselves cherished 
it, and even after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection they 
asked, " Lord, dost thou at this time restore the Kingdom 
to Israel ? " 2 The Magians were pervaded with the ideas of 
their age and their race ; and it would be absurd to attribute 
to them conceptions more universal and elevated than those 
of the Twelve. 

They are remembered in history and chronicled by 
Matthew, not as witnesses to, or believers in, the true char 
acter of Christ, but as furnishing by their journey the evidence 
that the stored wisdom of the world was prepared for the 
birth of Jesus at this time, and ready to accept Him when 
He came according to their conception of His mission. 

The incident had to be. It was necessary that the world 
should of itself and through its own natural instinct recognize 
its Lord. "Then comes the check, the change, the fall." 

1 1 accept the general lines of Colonel Mackinlay's interpretation in his 
book on " The Magi : How They Recognized Christ's Star " (Hodder and 
Stoughton, 1907). 

2 Acts i. 6. 



148 XI. The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 

The world could not maintain itself on this high level of 
intuition ; but for the moment the consciousness that this 
overpoweringly great event had happened, penetrated to 
the mind of the Magi. 

The same truth is expressed in historical form by Luke. 
He is a Greek, and has the historian's instinct. In that 
most wonderful passage, II. 1-3, where he describes the cir 
cumstances that led to the birth of Jesus, he brings into 
the sweep of his conception some of the greatest forces 
that move through all ancient and modern history, and 
shows how they cross one another at one point, acting and 
reacting, and that point is the birth of the Saviour, the 
central fact in all history. 

In Matthew the truth is presented to us in concrete 
form as a series of acts performed by individuals. There 
is a certain resemblance here to myth ; but it is not a myth, 
any more than Jesus Himself is a myth. He must come. 
The whole history of the world leads up to Him, and finds 
its explanation and justification in Him. That this world 
with the stored-up wisdom of the past, imperfect as it is, 
should recognize Him was another event that must be. 
This is what Paul puts into the form of a " philosophy of 
history " in Romans VIII. 

The story of the Magians appealed to the simpler heart 
of the Mediaeval world. Painters and sculptors loved it as 
a subject. Matthew, having to use words only, might 
omit the number of the Wise Men, but when a painter 
showed the scene he must represent the actual number, 
either precisely as two or three, or vaguely as a multitude. 
During the third century the number is two in a painting 
in the Catacomb of SS. Peter and Marcellinus ; but as early 
as the fourth century the tradition established itself finally 
that the number was three ; this, however, was merely a 



XL The Magi at the Birth of Jesus. 149 

result of the artist's need. The number three is a natural 
one to select, as believed to be the perfect number, and 
having artistic advantages : moreover, three kinds of gifts 
were brought by them. 1 

1 See V. Schultze, " Christl. Archaeol.," p. 329. 



CHAPTER XII 

SERGIUS PAULLUS AND HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN 
FAITH 

So far as Sergius Paullus himself is concerned this episode 
described in Acts XIII. 6-9 seems unmotived and abrupt. 
He passes for the moment conspicuously across the stage 
of history, and then disappears. His name seemed almost 
to have perished, and the first edition of the great " Berlin 
Dictionary of Roman Biography" in 1898 had little to say 
about him and nothing about his family ; l such continued 
to be the case until 1912 when we began the systematic 
excavation of Pisidian Antioch, starting with the great 
Sanctuary on the hill-top overhanging the city some miles 
away, and continuing in the city proper. 

Naturally, this work gave us from time to time the 
opportunity of gaining access to inscriptions concealed in 
private houses in the modern town, near the old site. Such 
inscriptions are always difficult to find owing to the jealousy 
with which the Turks seclude their homes. In one of these 
occurs the name of Lucius Sergius Paullus the younger, 
whom we at once confidently recognized as the son of the 
Proconsul of Cyprus. Professor Dessau confirms our 
opinion on this point ; and in a letter which he kindly sent, 
he adds a brief statement of the family career in Roman 

1 " Prosopographia Imp. Rom.," n. p. 221 (1898). 

(ISO) 



XII. Sergius Paullus. 151 

Imperial history, with the comment, "evidently no member 
of this family was Christian ". In this I quite agree, so far 
as the distinguished members are concerned ; but in my 
turn I ask, " Does this disagree with, or does it confirm 
what Luke says about the Proconsul ? " 1 

The text is engraved in good letters of about A.D. 60 
to 100, on a block of stone which once must have formed 
part of the wall of a building. It was copied at Salir, one 
of the outlying quarters of Antioch, by Mr. J. G. C. Ander 
son and myself in 1912. 



I 7 SERGlCHjF'PAVLLO 



Fl L 1 Oil I )V I IWOT 
MlbLEG'VKERR'QVAEST 



FIG. 2. In honour of Sergius Paullus. 



L Sergio, L(uci) f(ilio), Paullo " To L(ucius) Sergius Paullus the 

filio, quattuorvir(o) v(iarum) c(uran- younger, 2 

darum), tri[b(uno)] son of Lucius, one of the four com- 

mil(itum) leg(ionis) vi Ferr(atae), missioners in charge of the Roman 
quaest(ori), streets, tribune of the soldiers of the 

sixth legion styled Ferrata, quaestor, 

etc." 

1 Professor Dessau is the first authority on the subject, editor of the " Pro- 
sopographia Imperii Romani," and engaged on the new and greatly enlarged 
edition of that work. His experience in tracing the history of the great 
Roman families gives unique value to his opinion. 

3 In Latin, " son ". In Greek inscriptions the same distinction between 
son and father of the same name is much more frequent, and is usually ex 
pressed by vfos or vecarepos. 



152 XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

The rest of the career was engraved on a separate stone, 
which has not yet been found. The course of office is that 
which was regular and customary for men of senatorial 
rank. 

The second filio, written in full, distinguishes this Sergius 
Paullus from a well-known father ; and the character of the 
lettering shows that, as Mr. Anderson remarked, the in 
scription should be assigned to the latter half of the first 
century after Christ. L. Sergius Paullus must have served 
as an official in the province Galatia before he attained the 
consulship ; 1 and the inscription was then placed in his 
honour by the Colony Antioch. His office was most prob 
ably the governorship of the province, because there was 
no other official of senatorial rank in the province except 
the governor ; and this office was regularly held before 
the consulship. Inscriptions in honour of governors are 
very common in Antioch; but inscriptions in honour of 
senatorial officials other than Governors are not found 
there, except when the official belonged to an Antiochian 
family and governed another province. 

From this inscription we learn that the Proconsul of 
Cyprus, L. Sergius Paullus (such is the correct Roman 
spelling) had a son who passed through the regular sena 
torial course of office ; and the first stages in the career of 
the latter are recorded in this inscription. The Proconsul 
Paullus had also a great-grandson of the same name, who 
was consul about A.D. 150, and again in i68. 2 

A new aspect, however, is imparted to the whole question, 
when we take into consideration another inscription which 

1 If he had attained the consulship, this would in ordinary course be stated 
immediately after his name and before the earliest office of his career. 

2 The interval seems too long for the consul of 168 to be regarded as 
grandson of the Proconsul of Cyprus in 47. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 153 

has been published for nearly thirty years, but formerly was 
totally misunderstood. It was republished by Mr. Chees- 
man of New College, Oxford, from a revised copy in the 
present year. The inscription, as it remains, occupies the 
whole of a large block of limestone ; but, large as it is, it is 
only a part of a much larger inscription, placed in honour of 
a distinguished citizen of Antioch who was in the highest 
course of Imperial service, viz. the senatorial, and of his 
wife, whose name was in part lost. Her second name was 
Paulla. Often as this inscription had been seen, it was only 
in 1913 that the full name of the lady was discovered. She 
was Sergia Paulla. 1 

With this discovery the inscription assumes a new in 
terest. From a document similar to several hundreds of 
others, it becomes a memorial associated with the drama of 
early Christian history and throws a light (which, as I hope 
to show, is great) on the narrative of the Acts. 

The full meaning and bearing of the inscription cannot 
be understood without considerable explanation. The 
marriage of a Roman lady of the senatorial nobility, like 
Sergia Paulla, to a mere citizen of Antioch, is in itself 
somewhat remarkable. We shall see that this marriage was 
a determining factor in an interesting episode of history. 
The situation was as follows. 

The most prominent family in Antioch was that of the 
Caristanii Frontones, whose history Mr. Cheesman has traced 

1 For all details see Mr. Cheesman's article in " Journal of Roman Studies," 
I 9 I 3> P- 262 f. The inscription, which every visitor to Antioch must see as 
he walks through the streets near the Bazaar, is clear and well preserved, 
but parts of the stone are broken. We have often seen it and verified Prof. 
Sterrett's published copy ; but only in 1913 did I observe that in one slight 
detail the type of his printed epigraphic text does not reproduce sufficiently 
the appearance of the stone, and that on this slight point depends the great 
value. 



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156 XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

through five generations. It was an Italian family, probably 
from southern Latium or the Campanian frontier, which had 
come to Antioch with the first Roman colonists about 24 
B.C. 1 The family had only equestrian rank, until a certain 
Gaius Caristanius Fronto was promoted to the senatorial 
career and the highest course of office in the Empire. The 
date of this promotion is fixed by Mr. Cheesman, a very 
careful and cautious scholar, to the joint censorship of 
Vespasian and Titus in A.D. 73-4. On this date compare 
a special note at the end of this chapter. 

Now when we consider that this Gaius Caristanius was 
the husband of a noble Roman lady, we cannot doubt that 
Mr. Cheesman is correct in attributing the early promotion 
of an obscure Roman knight from a city of Galatia to the 
influence of the family into which he had married. The 
wife carried her husband with her into Imperial favour. 
He must undoubtedly have been a man of outstanding 
merit, otherwise the marriage would not have been arranged ; 
and he knew how to use the opportunities which it gave 
him. 

Further, the marriage may undoubtedly be connected 
with the governorship of L. Sergius Paullus in the province 
Galatia. The Governor visited Antioch, and the inscription 
already published was erected in his honour. His atten 
tion was attracted by the young Gaius Caristanius, whose 
merit and wealth made him a suitable match for the sister 
(or daughter) of Sergius Paullus ; and the governor recom 
mended him to the Imperial notice and favour. The promo- 

1 As King Amyntas died in 25 B.C., leaving his kingdom as a Roman pro 
vince, it can hardly have been earlier than 24 that the province was organized 
and the colony founded. The first of the Caristanii will appear later in con 
nexion with the life of Quirinius, Governor of Syria in the^year that Christ 
was born : see the Gospel of Luke n. 2, and below in chapter on Quirinius. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 157 

tion serves to date the tenure of Galatia by Sergius Paullus 
to the period about 72-4, 1 and the marriage falls in the 
same period. There seems no other time or way in which 
a Senator of high Roman family could be present in the 
colony of Antioch. Now as the father of the governor of 
Galatia had been only Proconsul of Cyprus in A.D. 47, a 
rather humble office held by persons before, the consulship, 
it seems improbable that the son was old enough to have a 
marriageable daughter inA.D. 73. We may, therefore, take 
Sergia Paulla as his sister, and as daughter of the Proconsul 
who was in contact with Paul at Paphos. 

The period 72-4, then, probably marks the tenure of the 
province Galatia by Sergius Paullus, the marriage of his 
sister, and the promotion of her husband to the senatorial 
career, first to the grade of tribune and then to that of 
praetor. From this we may infer that Caristanius was pro 
bably about thirty-two years of age in A.D. 74, 2 and was 
born about 42. 

Thus we are coming closer to the Proconsul ; we have 
found his daughter ; can we now discover anything more 
about her? 

Sergia Paulla and Caristanius had at least two sons. 
The eldest took the father's name, while the younger had a 
cognomen Paullinus derived from his mother according to 
a common custom in that age. 8 The names Sergianus and 
Paullinus, as we observe in passing, can both be observed in 
the province of Galatia : the latter very often ; it was very 
common for provincials who were promoted to the Roman 

1 Calpurnius [Nonius] Asprenas governed Galatia from 69 to probably A.D. 
72. See Dessau, " Prosopographia ". 

2 The lowest legal age for holding the tribunate was twenty-five, for the 
prsetorship thirty, and for the consulship thirty-three. 

9 See Cagnat, " Manuel d'Epigr. Lat.," p. 66 (Ed. 3). 



158 XI L Sergius Paullus and his 

citizenship to take names derived from the governor whose 
official sanction had been given to the honour. 1 

The eldest son, Gaius Caristanius Fronto, erected this 
inscription to his parents. We observe that he wrote in 
Greek. It is remarkable that the son of a Roman senator, 
bound by Roman custom to the career and the language of 
a Roman, should prefer Greek to Latin. The very name 
Caristanius, too, disappears now from Roman epigraphy. 
The two facts must be connected. The son of a Roman 
senator and a noble Roman lady degenerates from Roman 
to Greek custom, and his family and name disappear from 
Roman history. He sank consciously and intentionally 
from Roman custom : he became a mere Greekling : the 
ways of Roman honour knew him not. This is a fact so 
noteworthy as to call for further examination. 

It was, indeed, the case that gradually the Roman 
citizens of Pisidian Antioch forgot the use of Latin and 
became merged in the Greek-speaking population of the 
province ; 2 but that is a fact of a later time. The leading 
families of Antioch even so late as the early fourth century 
still used Latin on formal occasions, though evidently 
Greek was more familiar to them. A careful Austrian 
scholar has studied the process, and dates in the third 
century 3 the early stages of the degeneration from the use 
of Latin. Even if we suppose that it began earlier, we 
cannot place the first steps in the process before the late 
second century. Here, however, we have a case which must 

1 The names of all the governors of this period can be traced in the 
epigraphy of Galatia : Nonius, Asprenas, Caesennius, Pomponius, etc. We 
find even Nonius Paullus and Nonia Paulla, uniting the names of the two 
governors, who went and came in 71 iprobably. We presume confidently 
that the governor's sanction was needed. 

3 The degeneration at Antioch is described in " Cities of St. Paul," p. 278. 

8 Kubitschek in " Wiener Studien," xxiv. 2. My dating has been the 
same. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 159 

be dated after A.D. 8 1 and not later than A.D. 83. The 
other cases, too, are found in mere provincial surroundings ; 
but here we have a Roman in the line of Imperial service, 
son of Romans of the higher nobility. 

The more carefully we observe the facts, the more we are 
struck with their unusual and non-Roman character. 

The hypothesis forces itself on us that the reason lay 
in religion. As yet the suggestion that follows must re 
main a mere theory ; but further evidence may be found in 
Antioch during the future excavations ; and the hypothesis 
may guide and sharpen the search. 

We recognize here the external signs of Christianity at 
this period. Unwillingness to take public office was a wide 
spread characteristic of the Christians, who shrank from 
positions in which they were obliged to assist at pagan 
ceremonies and even to take a leading part in the ritual. 
On account of their reluctance to serve the State, they 
were bitterly blamed and stigmatized as unpatriotic and 
traitors and enemies of their country. 1 Greek was the 
language of Christian teaching at that time. The Church 
in Rome itself used Greek and ranked as a Greek-speaking 
Church until well on in the second century. Accordingly, 
if the young Caristanius was a Christian, the situation is 
forthwith seen to be natural and almost inevitable. His 
religion came to him from his mother, and it came to her 
from her father the Proconsul. Thus we are gradually 
getting closer and closer to the story that Luke relates. 

It may be urged as an objection to the result stated as a 
conjecture in this chapter, that it seems to conflict with a 
general principle of the Roman bureaucratic system under 
the Empire : certain duties were imposed on the descendants 

1 " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 352. 



i6o XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

of a senator to the third generation, 1 and in particular the 
son of a senator was obliged to undertake a magistracy 
and so enter the senate. 2 This compulsion, however, 
rested on the ancient principle that every Roman citizen was 
bound to perform any public duty which the choice of the 
people imposed on him, and the presiding officer at an elec 
tion could compel any citizen to stand for office by placing 
his name against his will in the list of candidates. In 
practice, however, as Mommsen says, 3 the compulsion was 
restricted to pressure of an indirect kind. There would be 
something very unusual, but not at all impossible, in the 
conduct which our hypothesis attributes to the youngest 
C. Caristanius ; but our hypothesis is founded on the undeni 
able fact that there was something quite unusual in the 
situation, and this element must be recognized and ex 
plained. 

The question will at once be put, whether this hypothesis 
is not disproved by the facts which we admit as practically 
certain. The brother and the husband of Sergia Paulla, 
and the descendants of her brother, were all pagan, and 
engaged in the ordinary Imperial service. Is it possible, is 
it in accordance with a reasonable view of the situation, 
that the older Sergius Paullus the Proconsul, with his 
daughter, should have been either Christian or half-way on 
the road towards Christianity, while such near relatives 
were pagans ? This must be carefully considered ; and, as 
I believe, the discussion will prove instructive. 

In the first place, consider the relation of the younger 
Sergius Paullus, governor of Galatia, to his father the Pro- 

1 Mommsen, " Staatsrecht," in. 468 f. 

2 Ibid., i. 476: see also Mommsen's paper in the " Festschrift Hirschfeld," 
p. i ff. 

8 Loc. cit., p. i, note 4. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 161 

consul of Cyprus. Before A.D. 72-4, the younger Paullus 
had been praetor and then doubtless served as commander 
of a legion (legatus) for three years and .filled some other 
ofrlce before he came to Galatia. Probably he was quite 
forty years of age by that time, unless he had risen to the 
praetorship in the earliest legal year of his age. 

When the father was in Cyprus there is no probability 
that his son was with him. On the contrary it may be 
taken for granted that he was being educated in Italy as 
young Roman nobles were educated in preparation for the 
work of their life. An interesting and valuable picture of a 
school for such boys at Naples is given by the poet Statius, 
whose father was the principal of the school. 1 The young 
Sergius Paullus may quite possibly have been one of the 
pupils. 

If the older Sergius Paullus had become a Christian, or 
even had acquired a leaning to and an appreciation of 
Christianity, there is no likelihood that a boy of the age of 
his son and educated like him for the Roman service, would 
be affected by his father's change of mind, about which he 
would learn only after his father's return to Rome. What 
ever may have been the feeling and belief of his father, the son 
probably was already fixed in his Roman career. The fact 
that in patriarchally administered homes 2 of an Eastern 

1 No passage is more instructive about the best side of Imperial life than 
" Silvae," v. 3, 146-90. About that side one hears nothing from Juvenal or 
Martial or even Tacitus, except by indirect inferences from miscoloured 
records. No one can understand the Imperial system who has not studied 
and digested the Silvae " in great part. He may know the facts : Statius 
shows the spirit, as a poet who passionately admired the beautiful in art and 
morals saw it. 

2 On the character of such households as those of Lydia, who came from 
Asia Minor, and of the jailer, something may be learned from those of Phrygia 
described in my " Studies in the History of the Eastern Roman Province," 
PP- 150, 373, etc. 

II 



1 62 XI I . Sergius Paullus and his 

town like Philippi, belonging to a comparatively humble 
class, the whole family were baptized with the head of the 
household, 1 cannot be taken as proof of what would happen 
in such an aristocratic family as the Sergii Paulli with a son 
in the circumstances usually attending that position. The 
son would naturally continue his own life and work, with 
out change of religion, whatever were the case with the 
father. 

On the other hand, a daughter was often in a very dif 
ferent relation to her father. Much of course depended on 
the character of the father ; but a certain interest in study 
and science was evidently hereditary in this family, and 
the contemplative spirit is favourable to the affection and 
the life of the home. The daughter would in all probability 
not be with her father in Cyprus : the Roman system did 
not favour the presence of wives with their husbands in the 
province or the camp ; of old that had been forbidden ; 
but it had become more common under the Empire, though 
some objected to it, and would have restored by stringent 
rule the old prohibition. 2 Quite probably Sergia Paulla 
was too young, or not even born, in A.D. 47. In Rome, 
in her father's house, during his residence in the city, she 
might naturally and probably come to think as he did about 
the interesting nature and noble quality of the teachers of 
the new faith. As to the question whether he became in 
the fullest sense a Christian, the answer depends on the 
interpretation of Acts XIII. 9, on which see the later para 
graphs of this chapter. 

As Lightfoot pointed out, 3 a certain Sergius Paullus is 

1 In passing we may remark that probably the children of those households 
were young and under control of the head of the house. 

2 See the debate in the Senate reported by Tacitus, " Annals," in. 33 f. 

3 "Contemporary Review," May, 1878, p. 290 f. ; Meyer-Wendt quotes also 
Hausrath, " N.T. Zeitgesch.," n. p. 525. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 163 

quoted in Pliny's list of authorities for statements made in 
his second and eighteenth books ; and in both of those 
books various facts are recorded regarding Cyprus ; hence 
probability is distinctly in favour of the estimate just stated 
of the Proconsul's character. Similar character belongs to 
his grandson or great-grandson, the Consul of A.D. 152 and 
1 68 (as already stated). In fact, the known character of 
the youngest Paullus was formerly regarded by some as a 
proof that this philosophic and scientific governor mentioned 
by Luke was a sort of reflection of the second-century consul, 
as mirrored in the mind and memory of the supposed late 
concocter of the Acts. Lightfoot retorted by showing the 
probability that the old proconsul was a man of similar 
tastes to his great-grandson. 1 

So much is certain : the little that we do know gives a 
favourable conception of the family, as a whole, and is in 
accordance with Luke's account. 

Moreover, we know that in that period there was a cer 
tain admixture of Christianity in some noble Roman fami 
lies; but it would be absurd to suppose that, because one 
member of the house was Christian, therefore all were 
Christian. Domitilla, niece of the Emperor Domitian, and 
Fkvius Clemens his cousin, and Pomponia Graecina (wife of 
Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain), were almost cer 
tainly Christians. It has never been imagined that their 
entire families were of the same religion. So it is with the 
Sergii Paulli. One must understand that there was during 
this period a certain informal agreement in such families, 
otherwise family life would have been impossible. The 
character of Pauline Christianity in Phrygia, and the system 
of mutual allowance which existed there during the second 

1 The relationship was not then assured. Now through the intermediate 
stage Professor Dessau considers it may be taken as certain. 



164 XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

and third centuries, is described by the present writer else 
where. 1 That tolerant system was quite in the spirit of 
Paul, who fully contemplates and makes rules for Christian 
conduct in mixed households. It, however, was destroyed 
by the massacre of Diocletian ; the moderate and tolerant 
were to a great extent exterminated then in Central Asia 
Minor ; and a new generation arose which did not under 
stand the spirit or preserve the tradition of Paul. The pre 
sent writer, without being conscious of the similarity, has 
described the like effect produced in a much less degree 
by the persecution of Domitian. 2 

The Sergii Paulli belong to this period; and if there 
was any Christianity among them, as Luke says, we have 
no reason to think either that it was universal in the family, 
or that it led to the total break-up of family life. The 
progress of discovery goes entirely to confirm this estimate 
of the situation. 

Now comes the question how much we can infer with 
confidence from Luke's words in Acts xm. 9; that "the 
Proconsul believed, being astonished at the teaching of the 
Lord". 

What is the force of the term " believe" (Trto-reuw) in the 
Acts? Does it necessarily imply that all who <( believed" 
were converted and permanently became Christians in the 
complete and final sense ? 

First let us take the general question, without prejudice 
due to this special case. 

The example of Simon Magus seems to : furnish a very 
strong argument. Simon believed 3 and was baptized. Yet 

1 The evidence, so far as known in 1894, ls collected in " Cities and 
Bishoprics of Phrygia," n. chap. xn. 

2 " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," pp. 275 f., 296. 
s Acts viii. 13. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 165 

it is hard to suppose that he became in the final sense a 
Christian, although for the time he was a member of the 
Church. The language of Luke, on the 1 whole, suggests 
that he fell away from the Faith, though certainly this is 
not distinctly stated. Simon, it is true, after his baptism 
" continued with Philip ; and beholding signs and great 
wonders wrought, he was amazed " (eftoraro). Yet no 
word is said to mitigate the final condemnation pronounced 
on him by Peter : " thou hast neither part nor lot in this 
matter ; for thy heart is not right ". He is not described 
as repenting, but only as asking, in fear of the future, that 
Peter should pray for him. 

It seems highly probable that Luke knew the reputation 
which the magician afterwards acquired, 1 and that he re 
garded the subsequent history of Simon as the natural re 
sult of what occurred at the beginning of his connexion 
with the Christians. 

Luke seems to regard belief as the first stage in a process. 
The second stage is "turning to the Lord," 2 of which the 
seal is baptism, and which is consequent on believing. 
Later there ensues the settled Christian life of those who 
are styled in the perfect tense TreTrarreu/eoTe?, who are in 
the state of them that have come to believe. 8 

A process is here presumed which regularly and usually 
passed through these stages; and in various places, e.g. 
XVIII. 27, this process is described as a whole by mentioning 
only the first stage, belief, and assuming that the normal 
continuation followed. The context is the proof that 

1 Without accepting as historical the presumptions of the pseudo-Clemen- 
tine treatises, one must regard them as having a certain foundation in the 
belief and tradition of the Church about Simon. 

2 Acts xi. 21, liriffrevoy ical fpairriCovTO, XVIII. 8, cp. VIII. 13. 

3 Acts xxi. 20, 25 ; xix. 18, etc. 



1 66 XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

" belief" implies all this. But is that always the case? does 
TTia-TevQ) always imply that the person who believed went 
on through the later stages, and became a Christian in the 
fullest sense ? If so, why should Luke often add a second 
verb, indicating one or other of the subsequent stages ? I 
think that the state of mind called believing (iriareveiv) 
sometimes advanced no farther than intellectual assent and 
emotional impression ; and it would not be safe to assert 
that belief always was followed even by baptism. 

There is no sign, and no probability, that the Proconsul 
was baptized. It is not likely that Luke, who pays so 
much attention to the attitude of the Romans to the new 
religion, 1 would have omitted to say so if it had been the 
case. It may reasonably be doubted whether his words 
imply more than intellectual belief resulting from amaze 
ment at what had been heard and seen, i.e. some very 
deep impression on the mind, but nothing beyond that of 
an openly avowed and permanently religious character. 

The use of e/cTrX^Tro/^at elsewhere by Luke three times 
in the Gospel, here alone in Acts does not suggest that 
astonishment was a sure prelude to conversion. His em 
ployment of the almost synonymous e^ia-ra^ai is equally 
unfavourable to that view. Mere astonishment is not the 
state of mind which favours real conversion ; it produced 
the unreal and evanescent conversion of Simon Magus ; it 
made the mob of Samaria his devotees. 

One piece of evidence seems strong. Luke IV. 32 
uses the same words about the people of Capernaum as 
about the Proconsul, "they were astonished at his teach 
ing " ; but they were not converted. The Proconsul was 
astonished at Paul's teaching ; he admired it as a moral 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 304 ff. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 167 

and intellectual display ; he was delighted with the bold 
ness and the power of these itinerant lecturers ; but this 
spirit Luke does not regard as a proof of real conver 
sion, and he adds the words, "he was astonished at the 
teaching of the Lord," to show the limitations of the case. 

Meyer-Wendt and probably almost all ordinary readers 
consider that the Proconsul was converted ; and Blass even 
connects " he believed in the teaching of the Lord, being 
astonished at the miracle " (eViVreucre^ TU rrj SiSaxfj rov 
Kvpiov) regardless of the Greek order and of the analogies 
which he quotes (Luke IV. 32 ; Mark I. 22); but he has 
not persuaded Wendt to accept this translation, and is not 
likely to find others ready to follow him. 

Mr. Rackham, on the contrary, takes a very different 
view, and has a judicious and cautious note in his edition 
of the Acts, to which I may refer the reader ; and he 
concludes that a real conversion of the Proconsul would 
have had more serious consequences, whereas Paullus "had 
no more dealings with the Apostles, who leave Cyprus ". 
I would ask, however, how we know that Paullus had no 
more dealings with the Apostles ; we are informed here 
only about the moment : there remains much to say, that is 
not here said. Mr. Rackham is rightly sensitive to a certain 
abruptness in the incident, regarding which see below. 

Luke lays full emphasis on the highly favourable impres 
sion which Paul made on the first Roman official with 
whom his mission work brought him in contact. This is 
in accordance with his general plan, and illuminative of his 
purpose in this history (as is pointed out in " St. Paul the 
Traveller," pp. 304-9). 

Some will be disposed to set no value on Mr. Rackham's 
first argument: "it seems incredible that at this date a 
Roman Proconsul could have been converted it would 



1 68 XI L Sergius Paullus and his 

have made a great stir in the Church and in the world, of 
which some echo must have reached us ". Admitting all 
this, they would simply add that Luke, not being a trust 
worthy historian, incorrectly represents Paullus as having 
been converted ; thus the mistranslation of the statement 
in the Acts would be made into a charge against the trust 
worthiness of the writer. 

We do not, however, admit Mr. Rackham's presumption 
that, if the Proconsul had been converted, it would have 
caused a great stir in the world any more than we should 
admit the reply that Luke gives an untrustworthy account 
of the incident. The presumption rests only on the view 
that the world was interested in this new religion, and 
watched keenly for every trace of its progress. Quite the 
opposite is the case. Hardly anyone except the few 
Christians felt any interest in the new faith. The great 
world was profoundly indifferent to the rise of another 
Oriental " superstition " : there were already a score of 
them, and the addition of one to the list was not worthy 
of any sensible person's notice. That is the spirit of the 
first century. It was affected in some degree by Nero's 
capricious and unreasonable action in A.D. 64-6, the act of 
a detested tyrant whose memory was condemned and 
whose acts were annulled ; but ultimately the attack made 
by the despot resulted, as Tacitus says, 1 in rousing sym 
pathy for the sufferers ; and thus Tacitus dismisses the case. 
No permanent change was produced in the public attitude. 2 

lu Annals," xv. 44: "unde . . . miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non 
utilitate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur ". Tacitus shows 
clearly that this sympathy was misplaced, and that the Christians all 
deserved death ; but that knowledge arose from subsequent history, and 
was not in the minds of the Romans at the time. 

2 This is one of the most important aspects of Tacitus's narrative. His 
condemnation of all Christians as evil-minded springs from later experi 
ence, and anticipates cruelty. 



Relation to Christian Faith. 169 

The case which Luke presents to the Roman world rests 
on this general attitude : the State had decided, first through 
the action of a provincial governor (Junius Gallic, Seneca's 
brother), and afterwards by the formal judgment of the 
Supreme Court of the Empire, 1 that the government should 
take no heed of such matters, i.e. that teachers might 
teach and preachers preach as they pleased (so long of 
course as they did not make themselves liable to prosecu 
tion for treason or disrespect to the Emperor or any other 
crime). 

The world of Rome, therefore, was not in the smallest 
degree affected by the change of philosophic or religious 
attitude in Paullus, if such a change occurred. His friends 
might remark over the dinner-table, 2 that he had taken up 
with a new Oriental doctrine, just as they might tell how 
another acquaintance had been initiated at Eleusis, or a 
third had fitted up a private chapel for the rites of Isis ; and 
this or other such tales might become public gossip for a 
moment at the baths. Beyond this it is quite clear that 
during the first century public opinion did not concern itself 
with the doings of individuals, except for a time under Nero 
and again under Domitian, both Emperors whose acts were 
repealed at their death. Pliny had some difficulty: he 
knew that the general principle condemning all Christians 
as disloyal and enemies of society had been established ; but 
the matter was not quite clear to him. When had the 
principle been established ? Obviously no act of Domitian 
or Nero was valid, therefore only Vespasian remains. He 
had come to the opinion that State policy required the 
extermination of the Christians ; but he did not actually 
carry it out, as Domitian did. Trajan reviewed the whole 

1 In the first trial of Paul at Rome. 

a Juvenal, " Satire " I. : " nova nee tristis per cunctas fabula cenas ". 



170 XII. Sergius Paullus and his 

case and confirmed the principle, but discouraged all activity 
in action against the proscribed Christians. 

Thus it is contrary to everything we know about the 
position of the Christians to suppose with Rackham that the 
conversion of a Proconsul would cause any great stir in the 
world at that time. 

Here comes in the evidence of the Antiochian inscriptions. 
They point probably to the conclusion that Christianity 
came into the female branch of the Sergian family, and 
therefore that Sergius Paullus must have believed in a very 
thorough-going way, though this could not safely be taken 
as implying baptism and full membership. 

There is more to be found in the future regarding this 
governor. 

Another case where the same term is used with uncertain 
force is Acts XVII. 34 : " certain men also clave unto him 
and believed, among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, 
and Damaris," etc. In this case I believe that no Church 
was formed, and no baptism administered at the time. 
Doubtless the effect produced on a few persons was 
genuine and deep, but Paul did not then remain in Athens 
to follow it up. This we gather from a casual phrase of his 
in I Corinthians XVI. 15, which opens up a wide question, 
and cannot be treated in this place. See below in chapter 
" First-fruits of Achaia ". 

Even if we take the words of xill. 12 in their lightest 
implication, the tendency and favourable opinion that 
Paullus felt for the new faith might very well result in his 
daughter at Rome gradually going farther. But certainly, 
while this must be admitted, the simplest sense, which 
practically every reader takes from that verse, is distinctly 
favoured by the interpretation which has been proposed for 
these Antiochian inscriptions ; though we fully acknowledge 



Relation to Christian Faith. 171 

that the interpretation remains a hypothesis for the present. 
New evidence may be found if the excavations be com 
pleted ; but the completion is a work of years and much 
expense. 

In the opening paragraph of this chapter we spoke of the 
abruptness with which the Proconsul is dismissed ; but this 
would disappear entirely if he continued to be a personage 
known among the Christians, for whom the historian wrote. 
The incident was merely the introduction of a well-known 
figure in their history : they knew the rest : a complete 
history of the work of the Holy Spirit in the world (which 
it was Luke's aim to write in outline) would have more to 
say about him. 

This consideration, that Luke addressed a public to whom 
many personages in his story were familiar as household 
words, must be kept in mind when we are estimating his 
work, and its purpose and quality. 

The same remark applies to Simon of Samaria as to 
Sergius Paullus. He, too, appears for one occasion in the 
history, and then is lost to us ; but we know that he con 
tinued to play a part in the drama of the early Christian 
time, though legend and invention have obscured the real 
facts of his subsequent career. 

In both cases there remained much to tell. Luke knew, 
as he was writing, that he was dealing with figures of im 
portance, and that later Christian annals would know those 
two persons : and there is a certain abruptness in the way 
they are dismissed which becomes intelligible if there is 
more in the future to tell. 

That such abruptness indicates that there is more to say 
which is not said at the moment, either because it was 
familiar to the readers at that time, or because it was going 
to be stated in the course of the history, is suggested by the 



172 XII. Sergius Paullus. 

abrupt dismissal of Philip in VIII. 40. He is brought to 
Caesarea and left there. There is no apparent reason why 
Caesarea is mentioned, until we come to XXL 16, when the 
purpose becomes evident. This relation between VIII. 40 
and XXI. 16 was recognized even by some of the old 
Tubingen School, who were not prone to see purpose or 
plan in the Acts. 

Note (p. 156). It is known that Vespasian after his 
accession in 69 advanced several of his personal friends 
to places in the Senate ; but Caristanius cannot have ranked 
among these. Mommseri considers that, until the assump 
tion of the censorship for life by Domitian, emperors exer 
cised the right of adlectio in senatum, i.e. inter tribunicios^ 
aedilicios, etc., only when they were actually holding the 
censorship (" Staatsrecht," II. ed. 3, p. 944). This view is 
not fully justified ; but exceptions were rare and are of such 
a character as to suggest that they were contrary to a 
usual practice. Assuredly Vespasian is not likely to have 
promoted Caristanius between his act of 69 and the censor 
ship, during which he made a large number of such pro 
motions. On the whole question see Groag in "Arch. Ep. 
Mitth. aus Oesterreich," 1897, p. 49; he considers it likely 
that Vespasian did not use the right of adlectio after 69 until 
he assumed the censorship and exercised the right on a large 
scale ; and he points out the exceptions to the rule that 
Mommsen laid down in his " Staatsrecht," loc. cit. 



CHAPTER XIII 

" SALVATION " AS A PAGAN AND A CHRISTIAN TERM 

WHAT was the salvation which the lame man at Lystra 
was capable of receiving ? It has been pointed out already 1 
that the word in this place "has hardly the Christian sense, 
but is used practically in the common pagan sense " ; and 
that " this is a proof of early date ". At the same time the 
rendering in the Revised Version " faith to be made whole " 
seems strangely narrow and unsatisfactory. The Authorized 
Version " faith to be healed " is far better. There is no 
reason why the revisers should have changed the rendering, 
unless they wished definitely to exclude any possible wider 
intention than mere physical restoration to health. This 
narrowing of the scope must, however, be condemned as 
unjustifiable. 

To the pagans salvation was safety, health, prosperity ; 
but even in pagan usage " the word never wholly excludes 
a meaning that comes nearer to reality and permanence " ; 
it is never wholly material and ephemeral ; " there is latent 
in it some undefined and hardly conscious thought of the 
spiritual and the moral, which made it suit Paul's purpose 
admirably ". 2 Such was the usage among the pagans. In 
such a context, when he is describing his first appearance 

1 See above, p. 46 : though the noun is not used, but only the cognate 
verb (iriffnv) rov awdrji/ai, yet this is equivalent to TTJS ffoor^pias, which was 
avoided as ambiguous and almost suggesting the meaning " the confidence 
that springs from salvation," cp. Col. n. 12, etc. 

8 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 95. 

(173) 



174 XIII. "Salvation" as a Pagan 

as a preacher in a pagan city, it is inconceivable that 
Paul should have used the word with a more restricted 
intention than the pagans attached to it, when they em 
ployed it in a religious connexion. 

The lame man wished for salvation as he could imagine 
it, safety and health. Paul read his mind by a flash of insight. 

This passage well illustrates the close relation between 
the pagan vows for salvation, and the offer of salvation 
which Paul brought to the Graeco-Roman world. He 
offered them something that they wanted and were praying 
for ; and in the offer he took the opportunity of purifying 
and spiritualizing their conception of that salvation, / which 
they were trying " to purchase by vows or to extort by 
prayers and entreaties from the gods". 1 He gave them 
what they wanted, and yet something far above what they 
could ask or even think. 2 

The word " Salvation " (a-cor'rjpia) was especially suited 
through its pagan religious use for employment in making 
the Christian Gospel intelligible to the Graeco-Roman world. 
The world wished and was praying for something like the 
" Salvation " that Paul announced to all. The study of 
this word is peculiarly instructive in respect of the relation 
between the teaching of Paul and the religious longings and 
conceptions of the Graeco-Roman public, and especially the 
syncretistic religion of the great pagan Mysteries. There 
are striking analogies between the pagan and the Christian 
use ; and in modern time some scholars have been so im 
pressed with these analogies as to forget or ignore the even 
more startling differences. 8 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 95. 

2 Ephesians in. 20. 

3 Loisy, catching the analogies from some German scholars, has empha 
sized them with extreme superficiality, being blind to everything except what 



and a Christian Term. 175 

That the earlier Christians (whom Paul followed) derived 
their use of this word from the Greek translation of the Old 
Testament is, of course, certain. They did not use it be 
cause it was commonly employed by the pagans in pagan 
religious expression, but because it was familiar to them 
selves in their own Scriptures. To the pagans, however, 
the word carried meaning and power, not because it was 
in the Septuagint, but because it expressed the desire of 
their hearts, and was familiar to them in their own religious 
observances. 

The general fact that this term " Salvation " was so im 
portant in the pagan mystic religions may be assumed as 
familiar. The evidence has been stated from different sides 
by several scholars, and is put prominently in Professor 
H. A. A. Kennedy's " St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions " : 
those religions "may be said to offer salvation to those 
who have been duly initiated" (p. 199): "but it is im 
portant to note that the salvation was invariably assured 
' by the exact performance of sacred ceremonies ' " (p. 216) * : 
" above all, it did not necessarily involve a new moral ideal " 
(ibid.). Yet Professor Kennedy is fully alive to the germs 
of higher ethical and religious ideas involved : " no unbiassed 
mind can fail to read between the lines almost pathetic 
indications of a craving for fullness of life, for a real and 
enduring salvation" (p. 95). The salvation was gained 
through a new birth : " the initiates are fed with milk as 
being born again ". 

In paganism the association of their " Salvation " with 
the idea of rebirth or of death and a future life, was invari- 

catches the eye on a first view of the subject ; see " The Teaching of Paul 
in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 286, 304, etc. 

^he last seven words are quoted from Cumont, " Les Religions 
Orientales dans le Paganisme Remain," p. xxii. 



176 XIII. "Salvation" as a Pagan 



able. Both Paul and the Mysteries " taught the Way of 
Salvation, or simply f the Way ' ; but in the Mysteries the 
Way was literally a path marked by a white poplar tree 
and other signs, which the soul of the dead man had 
learned in life through the esoteric and mystic lore ".* The 
simple inscription on a rather elaborately sculptured tomb 
stone of the type of a door, found at Akmonia in Phrygia, 
was probably an expression of the mystic teaching : 2 

C<2- They 

m[>] live, 

[Mcyav nlvSv- great danger 

\y~\ov fKirfQev- having es- 

[y]6res caped. 

These words are incised rather carelessly and irregularly 
near the edge of the stone, while the middle, where the 
inscription usually stands, is left blank. The reference is 
to safety gained in a future life from the dangerous situa 
tion of man in the present world with its "hard and 
dreadful servitude to the power of the demonic rulers, 
organized in a sort of hierarchy of evil forces, ( angels and 
principalities and powers ' (Romans VIII. 38) under ' the 
ruler of the power of the air ' (Ephesians II. 2)." 3 Such 
safety and life is the " Salvation " of the Mysteries. As 
Professor Kennedy on p. 95 says " the hope of immortality 
is conveyed to their votaries through an elaborate ritual," 
the centre of which was formed by " grotesque myths " in 
which was " embodied the return to life of Osiris and Attis ". 

There is a certain outward resemblance between some 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 302. 

2 It is published from copies by myself and Professor Sterrett of Cornell 
in "Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," n. p. 564 f., no. 465, among the 
Christian inscriptions ; but I should now prefer to assign it to the mystic 
paganism. 

3 " Teaching of Paul," p. 304. 



and a Christian Term. 177 

of this teaching, so far as it contains the germs of finer 
ideas, and the purely spiritual teaching of Jesus and Paul ; 
but no true analogy exists between them. Only those who 
ignore the difference between mere prescribed ritual and 
what is really spiritual can mistake superficial resemblance 
for real organic analogy. " It is painfully evident in the 
writings of the school whose views we are discussing that 
they are so habituated to consider ritual the essence of 
religion as to miss the essential character of the Pauline 
'Way'." 1 

<,Among the pagans, then, the term "Salvation" was 
largely material in its connotation, and salvation was gained 
by ritual and ceremonial. There were three chief depart 
ments, so to say, of salvation among the pagans : the 
salvation gained by religious duties and vows and prayers, 
the salvation sought by magic rites, 2 and the Imperial 
salvation. As in every other department of life, so here, 
the policy of the Empire enters to dominate and to guide 
the thoughts and acts and even the prayers and wishes of 
all its subjects : chapter XV. 

The salvation that was sought by magic was practically 
the same that the devout pagans prayed for. Magical art 
grows out of the degeneration and degradation of religion ; 
and the only difference between magical and religious salva 
tion was that the devotees of magic were on the whole 
lower in moral and mental character than the other pagans, 
and their conception of salvation was therefore more 
material and more vulgar. In the following chapter XIV. 
some examples are quoted of the ordinary pagan religious 
salvation. 

1 " Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 304. 
2 Hubert in Daremberg-Saglio, " Diet, des Antiq.," under '* Magia" gives 
salvation as one of the objects sought by magic arts. 

12 



CHAPTER XIV 

PRAYERS FOR SALVATION AMONG THE PAGANS OF 
ASIA MINOR 

WE must try to comprehend imore clearly by looking both 
at the subject of chapter XIII. as a whole and at some 
typical examples, first how Paul thought about his own 
teaching in its relation to the pagan world, and secondly 
what was involved in the prayers and vows which the 
pagans were making. 

To understand the feelings of his pagan contemporaries, 
and so to be able to make his message intelligible to them by 
showing them that it satisfied their vague and " ignorant " l 
gropings after higher religious and ethical ideas, was a 
necessity for Paul, and is now a necessity for us, if we are 
to comprehend the history of his work as contained in the 
Acts. Some paragraphs of the Epistle to the Romans 
especially, 2 and many allusions elsewhere, show that Paul 
was fully alive to the existence in the contemporary pagan 
mind of such germs of better thought. It has been the 
purpose of the present writer from the beginning to exhibit 
the close relation of Paulinism to the highest conceptions of 
right and good among the pagans. 

By the term Paulinism it is needful to explain that 
I mean Christianity as expressed by Paul to the Graeco- 
Roman world not a development out of the Teaching of 
Jesus, nor a superstructure built upon that Teaching, but 

1 Acts xvii. 23. 2 Romans i. 19 f., n. 13-15, vin. 18 ff. 

(178) 



XIV. Prayers for Salvation among Pagans. 179 

the expression of it in a form which could be readily com 
prehended by his pagan hearers, and become vital and 
creative among them. That vitality and creativeness rested 
first on a certain organization, which was necessary in 
order to knit together a really growing society, a congrega 
tion, and in the complete stage a Church, and secondly on a 
common teaching so expressed as to be comprehended by 
all. 

Both conditions were fundamental, and implied in 
Paul's idea of the unity of the Church. No unity, no per 
manent harmony arid brotherhood, can exist among 
scattered congregations, divided both by long distances and 
by diversity of training and blood and ideals, except through 
a certain machinery of organization. Such organization 
was necessary to maintain the vitalizing and unifying inter 
communication among the separate congregations which 
was the life-blood of the Universal Church ; it was needed 
also to maintain permanence of tone and ideals in the in 
dividual congregations. That such organization of the 
congregations was contemplated by Paul from the beginning 
of his mission to the Roman world, and is described to us 
in the pages of Luke, I have always maintained. Some 
modern scholars discredit and ignore all this creative side 
of Paul's character and work, \ but hardly any have gone 
quite to such an extreme as Professor Deissmann of Berlin 
in his recent " St. Paul : a Study in Social and Religious 
History". 1 

The fundamental forms of such an organization were 
floating in the atmosphere of the Roman world. They 
were Roman forms, but not pure Roman ; they were the 
forms suited for the society that existed in Asia, uniting 

1 The concluding chapter of the present writer's " Teaching of Paul " is 
devoted to a criticism of Dr. Deissmann's book. 



i8o XIV. Prayers for Salvation among 

elements that partook of the genius and the nature both of 
Jews and of Hellenes, varying in details from Imperial pro 
vince to province, yet everywhere bearing a generic type 
as Roman. These forms were at hand. Paul did not imi 
tate any existing organism ; he merely worked with the 
conceptions and used the forms of his age, adapting them 
to his purpose ; and his successors developed them to new 
uses. 

Along with the religious conceptions and the organizing 
forms, Paul (and in much smaller degree the pre-Pauline 
teachers) adopted the names and words of existing society. 
He did not attempt to create a new Christian language : J 
such an attempt must have proved vain, and would have 
stultified itself: he must speak to his audiences in their 
own language if he wished to reach their heart. 2 But the 
already existing words he filled with a fuller and richer and 
more spiritual content. 3 Thus the words of the early Chris 
tian teaching were old, and yet in a sense they were new : 
the sound was old, but the meaning was so much developed 
that they were new. Yet the change of meaning was such 
that they were still intelligible in a certain degree to the 
pagans not indeed fully intelligible : who has ever grasped 
the full meaning of Paul's teaching ? what pagan or what 
Christian theologian has ever fully understood all that is set 
forth in the letter to the Romans ? The teaching of Paul 
remains always on a higher level than we can attain, and 
yet it is always in a degree intelligible and vitalizing even 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," ch. LIII. 

2 As Ennius said, he had three hearts, because he had three languages : I 
do not dogmatize about the meaning of the word heart. A friend who knew 
the Turks very intimately said that a Turk to whom you talked in French be 
came a totally different person when you talked to him in Turkish ; and this 
friend was a diplomatist of thirty years' experience. 

8 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 285, 410. 



the Pagans of Asia Minor. 



181 



to the simplest religious heart ; and there is a power in it 
that is even more effective and intelligible to the simple 
religious consciousness than to the complex theological 
mind. 

There are, therefore, two things which must be kept in 
mind, as we try to understand the history contained in the 
Acts. We must have always before us, first the relation 
of Paul to the pagan religious ideas current in society, and 
secondly his relation to the Imperial organization. 

These two matters the present writer has always tried 
to state emphatically and as clearly as possible, from the 
beginning of his work in this department ; and the present 
chapter is intended to serve the same purpose. In the 
first place 1 shall quote some brief typical sentences from 
earlier books, and in the second place I shall add some 
illustrations from contemporary documents of the early 
Christian period. 

The modern world has awakened to the complexity and 
the intensity of the religious questionings that were then 
burning in the pagan world. 1 In paganism Paul saw also 
that there was, or rather had originally been, an element of 
truth and real perception of the Divine nature. 2 The regions 
where the new religion spread at first most rapidly were 
those where the people were becoming aware of the beauty of 
Greek letters and the grandeur of Roman government, where 
they were awaking from the stagnation and inertness of an 
Oriental people, and their minds were stirred and receptive 
of all new ideas, whether Greek philosophy or Jewish 
or Christian religion. 3 Here and always we find that 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 284. 

2 " Pauline and Other Studies in the History of Religion," 1906, p. 166 
(in a reprint of a paper read to the Oriental Congress about 1891 or 1892). 

8 " The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170," p. 147. 



1 82 XIV. Prayers for Salvation among 

the spread of Christianity was favoured by intelligence 
and freedom of mind in those among whom it was first 
preached. 1 The Asiarchs, who were Paul's friends, had no 
doubt held, many of them, priesthoods of the native deities 
before they became officials of the Imperial cultus. 2 Paul 
did not make speeches at Ephesus inveighing against the 
goddess of the city. In the denunciation of images he 
stands on the footing of the philosophers. His teaching 
was introduced to his pagan audiences in the language of 
the purest and simplest theology current among educated 
men. From this he proceeded to more advanced teaching. 
Hence the instantaneous and electrical effect produced on 
the Galatian cities. 3 

The new Empire transcended national distinctions and 
national religions : this new unity required a new religion 
to consecrate it, and to create a common idea and a tie ... 
the new Empire set about creating a new religion, taking up 
the existing religions and giving them a place in its scheme : 
the Emperor represented the majesty, the wisdom, and the 
beneficent power of Rome, and he was in many places con 
ceived as an incarnation of the god worshipped in that dis 
trict : 4 this new Imperial religion was the expression of 
Roman patriotism, the bond of Roman unity, and the pledge 
of Roman prosperity : 5 it was the keystone of the Imperial 
policy. 6 Christianity also created a religion for the Empire 
transcending all distinctions of nationality ; and the path 
of development for the Empire lay in accepting the religion 

1 " The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170," p. 134 

2 Ibid., p. 133. 3 " St. Paul the Traveller," pp. 146-9. 

4 " The Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 191. 

5 Ibid., p. 209. 

6 Ibid., p. 324 : this expression has been quoted by Mommsen as the per 
fect expression of the importance of the Imperial cultus in the State : see 
' Expositor," July, 1893, P- 2. 



the Pagans of Asia Minor. 183 



thus offered it to complete its organization. Universal 
citizenship, universal equality, universal religion, a universal 
Church, all were ideas which the Empire was slowly 
working out, but which it could not realize till it merged 
itself in Christianity. 1 

A few typical dedications may now be quoted as ex 
amples of these two fundamental conditions in the relation 
between Pauline Christianity and the established social and 
religious system of the Empire. They are all selected as 
bearing on the longing felt, and the vows and the prayers 
offered, for " Salvation " by the pagans among whom Paul 
moved and preached. They are for the most part later than 
the first century, because the native spirit in Anatolia did 
not express itself in writing on stone at that time ; but there 
is every reason to think that they are as characteristic of the 
first century as of the second. Towards the end of the 
third century there appears a new tendency to compete 
with and to outdo Christianity by adopting some of its ideas 
and forms. 2 

We have spoken about the frequent occurrence of the 
term " Salvation " in pagan vows. It is common ; but 
there is an even larger number of cases in which it is left to 
be understood, and there can be no doubt what word is to 
be supplied from the analogy of the cases where " Salvation " 
is mentioned. 3 Two examples are therefore given in the 
accompanying cuts, and others are quoted. 

I. The first was found at Dorylaion (Eski Sheher), and is 
published by Professor G. Radet in his " En Phrygie," p. 147. 

1 " The Church in the Roman Empire before 170," pp. 191 and 192. 

2 " Pauline and other Studies in the History of Religion," art. iv. 

3 In the " Teaching of Paul," p. 94 f., I have spoken too strongly, writing 
from memory, about the frequency of the term in dedications, and " very 
many " should be changed to " many " ; but the words are right if one in 
cludes the cases where the term is to be understood. 



184 XIV. Prayers for Salvation among 



It is a work of the rudest kind, and that is the reason why 
it is selected. We here have the prayer and vow of the 
common, poor, and uneducated peasant. The language is 
as rude as the art ; but still the meaning is certain, except 
that the opening word can be understood in more ways 
than one. It may probably mean " To (the god) Papas," 




FIG. 4. Vow to Papa Men for salvation. 



Ilcwro Tiairas 

TfKVWV (TOOT- 

ypias 



To Papas Papas 
[for] his children's sal 
vation to Men 
a vow. 



with another title Men applied to him later in the dedication. 
This seems to me the most likely interpretation; but it 
is also possible to translate : " Papa son of Papa " (or even 

1 In line 2 Professor Radet has E and reads re/cry Necwnjpias, " For Papas, 
child of Neoteria, Papas (made) a vow to Men ". This cannot be defended, 
and is evidently a mere slip : the form that results is in several ways contrary 
to all usage. 



the Pagans of Asia Minor. 185 

" the son of Papas, Papas ") made the vow. 1 The patronymic 
sometimes occurs before the son's name in Anatolian dia 
lects ; see a paper by the writer : , " Inscr. en Langue Pisidi- 
enne" in "Revue des Universes du Midi," 1905, p. 358, 
no. 5. 

Papas literally means " father," and this title was com 
monly applied to the supreme God in Asia Minor, especially 
in Bithynia and North Phrygia. It also was one of the 
commonest personal names all over Anatolia, especially in 
the less hellenized districts. The dedication then means 
"To Papas (the Father God), i.e. to Men, Papas (the man) 
[for] the children's salvation (makes, or pays) a vow". 2 
Another interpretation, however, is possible after the analogy 
of that group of epitaphs in which the making of the grave 
for a deceased member of the family is at the same time 
described as the making of a vow to the god : an example 
of this class is given below as no. IV. in the present chapter. 
In that case there would be omitted between line I and 
line 2 a line 3 containing the words ical v7re/>, and the mean 
ing would be : " To (his son) Papas and on behalf of the 
salvation of the children Papas to Men (makes) a vow ". 

The form and style of this rude monument are similar to 
those which are described in the chapter on Luke's Name. 
The preposition vnep or Trepi is omitted in line 2 ; the 
formula regularly has the preposition. The two prepositions 

1 Papas is the usual nominative with papa in genitive and dative ; but 
there is reason to think that sometimes a (possibly Phrygian) inflexion, Papa, 
genitive Papas, may have been used : " Essays in the History of the Eastern 
Roman Provinces," p. 321, 10, where read 4-jrl \Trpw\Ta\yaKKi\rov Atfp. Tlairas. 

2 The mystic identification of several different gods as varying forms of 
the same ultimate divine nature was widespread in Anatolia. Numerous 
examples occur : one of the most elaborate is No. 197 in " Cities and 
Bishoprics of Phrygia," n. p. 375 ; compare pp. 34, 104, 263 f., 293 f., and Nos. 
98, 100 f. in the same book. 

3 The engraver was unskilful, and certainly omitted something : that he 
omitted a whole line is the easiest supposition. 



1 86 XIV. Prayers for Salvation among 



are used in these dedications practically as equivalent. 1 
Also in the Christian form that Jesus died for man, both are 
used ; and in I Thessalonians V. 10 the true text is doubt 
ful, as both vTrep and irepi have good MS. authority. On 
the analogy of the Christian and the pagan forms more is 
said at a later point in this chapter. 

II. The following, found at Nakoleia, was copied by me 
in 1883 : 




ffvv yvva,i- 
K\ 'A/j-fjiicf, irepl eavroay 
/ce TUT IStwv K ra>v 
Kapiruv K rris K&- 



FIG. 5. Vow to Zeus the Thunderer for salvation. 

Metrophilos son of 
Asklepas 2 with his wife 
Ammia for their own 
and their family's and 
the crops' and the vil 
lage's salvation to Zeus 
the Thunderer a vow. 

1 Out of the equivalents inrep and irepl a novel Byzantine form inrepi was 
evolved. I have copied this twice, but doubted my own copy, or the engraver, 
thinking that + irp( was intended. Professor H. Gre"goire confirms this form. 

2 The inscription reads : " Metrophilos Asklepas," a double name ; but 
probably sigma is an accidental dittography, hence I translate as above. 



the Pagans of Asia Minor. 



187 



This vow is comprehensive. The inclusion of the 
family is common. It is evident that the family life was 
very closely united in the ^Egean countries in the less hel- 
lenized circles of society. In Phrygia the family unity even 
included the married sons with their wives : the " brides " 
(vvfj,<t>cu) were part of the household. 1 Hence the salvation 
is besought for the family as a whole ; and, when the head 
of a household found salvation (as in the case of Lydia and 
the jailer at Philippi) the entire household shared in it, and 
if the salvation took a Christian form, they received baptism 
in a body. The same, doubtless, was the case with the 
household of Stephanas at Corinth : see chapter " First- 
fruits of Achaia". The thought expressed here is typical 
of Anatolian and Macedonian custom. 2 

III. Another dedication found at Kuyujak, between Dory- 
laion and Nakoleia, was copied by Professor Sterrett in 
1883. I have no drawing or photograph of the stone. 



Heuvo 'Idffovos 
<rvy&ios irepi TO>- 

V ISiwV ffCOTIJpl- 

as MTjvt Ovpavt- 
(f ice ' 



Xeuna Jason's 
wife on behalf of her 
family's salvation 
to Men the Heavenly 
(god) and Apollo 



This dedication is given because it offers a good parallel to 
the case of Lydia. Xeuna acts on behalf of her family in 
this vow for their salvation. Apparently her husband is 
living, but is not interested in religious matters. The 
parallel, however, is not perfect, for Lydia changed the 
religion of her family, which it can hardly be supposed that 
her husband would have consented to, if he had been living 

1 See " Studies in the History of the Eastern Provinces," pp. 71, 82, 150, 
372. 

2 Zeus Bronton is almost entirely confined to the northern part of 
Phrygia about Dorylaion and Nakoleia : he is also the Father, Pappas or 
Papas. 



1 88 XIV. Prayers for Salvation among 

and near her ; but no one would wonder that Xeuna made 
a vow on her own account for her family, even though her 
husband was not interested. 

Vows on behalf of the entire family, without the defining 
word " salvation," are quite common. 1 As was said above, 
it may be assumed that the purpose of the vow in such cases 
is the (( salvation " of the family. 

IV. An example of the omission of the defining word 
" Salvation " is added in Fig. 5, which was copied at Dory- 
laion by me in 1883, and was afterwards published by 
Domaszewski and by Radet, whose copies differ as to one 
of the names ; but they are proved incorrect since another 
dedication to a different deity by the same persons 2 has 
been found and published. 3 

This is an inscription of a remarkable kind. It is an 
epitaph in memory of Timon, and at the same time it is a 
dedication to Zeus 4 for (the salvation of) the household. 
To make the grave was a religious duty, and the erection of 
the epitaph over it is the record of the vow. 5 This class of 
gravestones is common in Phrygia. The word salvation is 
sometimes expressed in such cases, and sometimes omitted. 

1 uTrep rS>v ISiwv Trdvruv. iravruv is sometimes omitted, sometimes ex 
pressed. vvp rov otnov also occurs. 

2 Domaszewski, " Arch. Epigr. Mitth. aus Oesterreich," 1883, p. 178, reads 
'AiriWos; Radet "En Phrygie," p. 149, reads Kairiruvos ; but "liriruvos is 
confirmed by the inscription in " Essays in the History of the Eastern Pro 
vinces," p. 271. Supply both fvx-fiv and o-eorrypfos. 

3 I read tStwv with blank at the beginning, but both Domaszewski and 
Radet have the form eitiuav. 

4 In one case Zeus the Thunderer, in the other inscription Zeus of the 
district Dagoutta in Bithynia. 

5 On this subject see a paper in "Journal of Hellenic Studies," vol. v., 
1884, on " Sepulchral Customs in Phrygia," by the writer, also " Essays on 
the History of the Eastern Provinces," p. 271 f. In some cases of this class 
the formula is "to so-and-so and to the god a vow " ; the first inscription 
in the present chapter may be understood in that way ; and there are other 
varieties. 



the Pagans of Asia Minor. 



189 




NOEXAIAMElAETTei 
ATfQA AONIOC 



FIG. 6. Dedication to Zeus the Thunderer on behalf of the family (Dory- 
laion). The top is restored conjecturally as an example of a common 
type of votive or sepulchral tablet. Some symbol was placed above 
the inscription (perhaps eagle or thunderbolt). 

Menander son of Hipp- 
on and Amias to Ti- 
mon their foster-child, 
and Apollonios 
and Dionysios to their 
foster brother on behalf of 
the family's (salvation) to 
TWVTI Zeus the Thunderer (a vow). 



vos /cal 5 A/iios Tef- 
(p, KO.I 



190 XIV. Prayers for Salvation among Pagans. 

It is remarkable that the idea of " Salvation " should be 
so closely connected with the making of the grave. Re 
spect to the dead is a prayer for the whole family and its 
permanence and prosperity. The dead has gone to be a 
god with the gods ; the tomb is his temple ; and the worship 
of this new god is inaugurated with the grave and epitaph, 
which are the discharge of a vow to secure his blessing 
for the entire household. In the two dedications Timon 
the foundling is regarded as identified with Zeus the 
Thunderer and with Zeus of Dagoutta. 

Evidently virep with the simple genitive implies vjrep 
artorrjpias with the genitive. Is not the same explanation to 
be given of the use of vTrep in the Christian formula that 
Christ died for men (virep and Tre/n)? He died for (the 
salvation of) men. 

It is not quite clear whether Apollonios and Dionysios 
are children or only foster-children of Menander and Amias : 
but the form suggests as perhaps more probable that they 
are only foster-children. If the latter is the case, then 
Menander would seem to have made a trade of bringing up 
foundlings, who were usually well treated and who occupied 
a recognized place in the household ; they are sometimes 
distinguished from the slaves, but in other cases it looks as 
if they were practically slaves. The custom of selling them 
as slaves was certainly not infrequent. 1 

1 On this subject see Pliny's well-known letter on the subject to Trajan and 
the Emperor's reply, with Hardy's commentary; also the discussion in 
" Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," 11. p. 546. Such foundlings brought up in 
a strange family are called dpevrol, 6pen/j.a.Ta, even Bpevrd in one case. The 
parents are epfyavres, and this term is used about Menander and Amias in the 
second inscription mentioned above, but not quoted in full. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE IMPERIAL SALVATION 

ANOTHER form of dedication, which is extremely common, 
is for the salvation and everlasting continuance of the 
Emperor and his house. 

From the beginning of its history Christianity was 
brought into the closest relations with the state and the 
religion of the Emperors. Paul obscurely hints at the 
worship of the reigning Emperor, " him that calls himself 
God," and the dead Emperors in 2 Thessalonians II. 1-12. 
The Revelation of John is absorbed in the conflict against him 
that sits on the throne of Satan. After the time of Vespa 
sian " a charge of Christianity was tested by calling on the 
accused to perform the ceremonies of loyalty and worship 
of the Emperors V From the beginning to the end of the 
contest with the State this worship of the Emperors was 
the immediate enemy of the Christians in a far more press 
ing way than the worship of Jupiter or the other gods. 
A few indulgent governors of provinces were willing to 
accept as the test of loyalty for accused Christians their 
oath by the salvation of the Emperor ; 2 and even Tertullian 
permitted this oath to be taken by Christians. 3 

What then was the "salvation" of the Emperor? It 

1 " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 275. 

2 Ibid. p. 323 f. in footnote. 

3 " Apologet.," 32 ; but the oath per genium Augusti was forbidden. 

(191) 



1 92 XV. The Imperial Salvation. 

was a very vague term, and we can attempt only to de 
scribe its most prominent aspect. 

This class of dedication is specially characteristic of the 
custom on the Imperial estates, which embraced a very 
large part of the best land throughout Asia Minor. Those 
estates were most extensive in the less hellenized provinces, 
like Cappadocia and Galatia, where the Roman Emperors 
inherited the vast properties of the kings, as well as those 
of the great religious centres. The population on the 
estates were in a specially close relation to the reigning 
Emperor ; they were not like ordinary provincials, but stood 
on a different platform of rights : in fact they had no rights 
except such as the Imperial pleasure and the force of custom 
allowed them. They were not far removed from being the 
slaves of the Emperor, though they were not actually slaves, 
nor were they even serfs attached to the soil, though < their 
status had considerable analogy to that of serfs and steadily 
degenerated towards it, until after the middle of the fourth 
century they may be fairly called in the fullest sense serfs, 
bound to live on and cultivate the soil and passing with the 
soil by purchase or inheritance to the next owner. 

The cultivators of those great Imperial estates, therefore, 
being in a status and legal position that approximated to 
slavery, had the right of slaves to be considered a part of 
the household of the Emperor. 

Hence the frequency on the estates of vows and prayers 
for the salvation of the Emperor and his household. The 
whole household formed a unity, as in private life ; and the 
members of the household prayed for the entire body. 1 
Slaves and freedmen made vows for their master; their 

1 Similarly, in the preceding case, a villager prays for the salvation of the 
village: chapter xiv., p. 186. 



XV. The Imperial Salvation. 193 

most sacred oath was by the genius of their lord, who stood 
to them in the relation almost of father and god these two 
relations approximated in the mind of the common people 
and in making such vows and prayers they included 
themselves as part of the household. They seem to have 
hardly thought themselves free to approach the god, except 
through their master, who was to them the embodiment on 
earth of the divine power. All those ideas, however, were 
fluid, and must not be treated or reasoned about as if they 
were definite logical principles. 

Thus the vows for salvation of the Emperor illustrate 
the unity of the household, a feature so marked in Acts 
XVI. 15, 33, I Corinthians XVI. 15. They also show how 
closely the person of the Emperor was connected with the 
life and conduct of the people in the provinces, in the first 
place of the cultivators of the great estates, and in the second 
place of the ordinary provincials who came to imitate more 
and more the fashion that ruled on the estates. 

The vows for the Emperor's salvation are often signed 
by long lists of the coloni, 1 who cultivated the estate. They 
present no feature of interest except what lies in the words. 
An example is given which was found at Saghir, the 
religious centre of the great Imperial estates near Pisidian 
Antioch, and copied by Professor Sterrett of Cornell Univer 
sity and afterwards by myself: 

" For the fortune and victory and eternal continuance of 
our Lords and the salvation of his whole household the 
(association of coloni called) ' Guest-friends of the Symbol ' 
dedicated a bronze (statue of) Fortune " ; then follows a list 

1 The word coloni, as denoting the cultivators of the great estates, must 
be distinguished from the coloni or citizens of a Roman Colony. The dif 
ference was world-wide, yet in origin they were the same. 

13 



194 XV. The Imperial Salvation. 

of names and subscriptions with date by the secretary of 
the society. 1 

This inscription was incised on the pedestal of the 
statue of Good Fortune, which was erected with the money 
contributed by the association of cultivators of the estates. 
An example of a similar dedication, erected by the city 
of Apollonia, is published on p. 44 above. 

Here the Emperor and his family, who are summed up 
as " our Lords," are conjoined with the body of tenants 
(coloni). The latter are organized as a religious association 
uniting in the worship of the Lords Emperors. In this case 
the identification of the Imperial family as a whole with the 
gods of the association is unusually clear : the Imperial 
family is the divine family, the god, the goddess, and the 
child. 

Such an association of coloni was obviously a body of 
servants and slaves of the god, Sov\ot, rov #eo{), as Paul calls 
himself. The coloni on the estate considered themselves to 
be absolutely the property of the Lord God their Master. 
The date of this inscription is certainly a little after A.D. 
200 ; and the family may be that of Elagabalus or more 
probably Alexander Severus; but the constitution of the 
cultivators as an association goes back to Augustus, and 
was unquestionably an inheritance slightly romanized, with 
out essential modification, from the arrangements under 
King Amyntas the previous landlord. 

An institution like this is obviously inconsistent with any 

1 [uircp Kv]pt<ov rv-)(T}s K.a\ \vi\Ki\s Kal alcavtov Siafiovijs Kol TOW ffvviravTos avrov 
oftcou ffwrtipias avfffrriffav aevoi TeK/iOpeibt Tv-^W -%a\Kov eV[l av]aypa(pos A.vp. 
Ua-jra Sis KT\, " Studies in the History of the Eastern Roman Provinces," p. 
333 f. The construction is illogical, as the single reigning Emperor is not 
specified except through avrov. Had it not been for avrov, one might have 
supposed that Kvpioi were two joint Emperors, 



XV. The Imperial Salvation. 195 

personal liberty in a political sense. 1 The god is the father 
of his people according to the Roman fashion, with power 
of life and death over all his children. Hence dedications 
occur to the Emperor as the Father God (irarpl 0e<S). This 
principle was carried out thoroughly in the institutions for 
the government of the estate and its cultivators. As the 
god himself could not be present with his worshippers, he 
was represented by his procurator, who fulfilled the duty of 
priest ex officio. The old Asian principle that the priest is 
the representative on earth of the god was thus carried out 
in a very literal fashion. 2 Augustus, indeed, probably did 
not insist very strongly on the identification of himself 
with the god and of the Empress with the goddess ; but 
the theory was there, and the institutions carried it out in 
practice. 

As the divinity of the Emperor became more and more 
explicitly and openly a part of the Imperial system, it 
followed that on those great estates near Antioch the 
identification of the Imperial god and goddess with Men and 
Selene was necessary. Since the local goddess was also re 
garded as Cybele, and was most frequently invoked as 
Artemis, various difficulties must have arisen for the logical 
mind ; but the worshippers were not logical, and disregarded 
all the difficulties of personality. Cybele, Artemis, Selene, 

1 The administration of the Anatolian estates is best described by the 
brilliant Russian exponent of the economy of the Empire, Rostowzew, in his 
" Studien zur Geschichte des rom. Kolonates," passim. He there adopts and 
approves everything that I had inferred from the series of inscriptions of this 
class in the Studies, pp. 306-70 (as already quoted). Some remarkable con 
firmations are given in " Annual of Brit. School at Athens," 1912, xviii., p. 62. 

2 The Anatolian practice commonly seems to have been that the priest 
wore the dress and bore the name of the god, disusing his personal name and 
assuming the sacred name when he succeeded to the priesthood, e.g. Atis at 
Pessinus. 



196 XV. The Imperial Salvation. 

Julia Domna, Tranquillina, are they not all varying aspects 
and titles of the single ultimate divine nature ? 

Finally, this Imperial association was a very convenient 
instrument for co-ordinating to one purpose the strength of 
all the members. Apparently this was done on a great 
scale during the struggle between the Emperors and the 
Christians during the third century. The association was 
essentially pagan. No one could belong to it who did not 
worship the God-Emperor. Yet any Christian cultivator 
on the estate must necessarily be a member of the associa 
tion. What then was to be done with such a disaffected 
colonus ? 

Probably the idea of the membership was not carried out 
to its logical extreme before the third century, and the re 
ligious nature of the association was allowed to be ignored 
by those members who did not approve. 1 In the third 
century, however, the religious aspect was made prominent, 
so that membership was a proof of loyalty ; and then the 
entrance into the association became an act of renunciation 
of the Christian faith, and was coupled with some rite of a 
novel character, designated by a newly invented word ; 2 and 
this rite was performed in some cases two or three times in 
succession. 

The system of the Imperial estates gradually affected the 

1 There is no trace of any very thorough-going persecution in Anatolia 
during the second century. Isolated, and perhaps fairly numerous cases of 
martyrdom of individuals occur ; but the State forbade the hunting of Chris 
tians ; only those who were denounced and caught were punished. In central 
Asia Minor there seems to have been great freedom on the whole at that 
time : see Chapter xn. of my " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," and 
Chapters x.-xiv. of the " Church in the Roman Empire before 170 ". 

2 The verb reK^opetJetj/, to show the Tekmor or secret sign, is a novel 
word: some other words were invented in this Tekmoreian Association, 
see " Journal of Roman Studies," 1912, p. 158 ff. 



XV. The Imperial Salvation. 197 

free cities in the disorder of the third and fourth centuries. 
Already examples occur of freemen and burgesses from the 
self-governing cities preferring the system of the estates 
with their practical serfdom as early as the first half of the 
third century, 1 and the customs spread. Thus serfdom 
became the goal of the Imperial order, 2 and produced the 
developed serfdom of the mediaeval land-system, which 
lasted in Russia until about 1 860. 

This is the " Salvation " of the dedications on the great 
estates. To explain its nature has called for a rather long 
historical review ; but it is impossible to understand the 
nature of any human institution or of any such object of 
human prayers, until we trace it in its development and its 
effects. The paternal government was " Salvation " in the 
estimate of the cultivators on the estates. It had its ad 
vantages. The Father God through his procurators pro 
tected his people, advised them, told them their duty, 
looked after peace and order, punished them for their faults , 
and in general made life easier for them. In the degenera 
tion and growing disorganization of the Empire, freedom 
lost its charm, and gradually ceased. The freeman was 
more exposed to oppression and insult than the serf. He 
could not protect himself, while the serf had his master to 
protect him from some of the evils of life. 

The logical issue of the paternal system of government, 
as we see it fully carried out under the Roman Empire, was 
the negation of freedom. In its opposition to the Imperial 
policy the religion of Christ was the champion of freedom. 
Such is its spirit in central Asia, where we can best see it, 
during the second century. Such is its spirit as declared 

1 "Studies in the History of the Eastern Roman Provinces," p. 357. 
3 Zulueta in VinogradofFs "Oxford Studies": there is a vast body of 
literature on this subject. 



198 XV. The Imperial Salvation. 

by Paul to the people of Antioch, Iconium, etc. : " ye were 
called for freedom," and " for freedom did Christ set us free : 
stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke 
of bondage ".- 1 He spoke to nations of slaves, the Phrygi 
ans and the Lycaonians, raised in some small degree from 
the condition of slavery by the Graeco-Roman education, 
but liable to slip back again as ithe Imperial system de 
veloped its paternal character thoroughly. The " Salvation " 
of Jesus and of Paul was freedom : the " Salvation " of the 
Imperial system was serfdom. 

The fourth century saw a gradual change. The Chris 
tian religion was taken under the protection of the State 
in the new Empire, and acquiesced in most of the evils of 
the Imperial system. That, however, lies outside of our 
subject, which is the truth, not the deterioration, of Chris 
tianity. We take it as it is set before the world at the 
beginning. 

1 Galatians v. 13 and i. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE ACTS, CHAPTERS I TO XII 

IN beginning to appreciate the great historical value and 
trustworthiness of the Acts, I was at first guided in some 
degree by old-fashioned ideas about sources and authori 
ties employed by the author of the book, drawing on my 
former experiences in respect of Aristotle and my studies 
in Old Testament history (as described on pp. 16 f. and 
1 8). Being very careful not to go beyond the evidence, 
I did not in my first book venture to argue for more 
than "that the narrative in Acts of Paul's journeys is 
founded on, or actually incorporates, an account written 
under the immediate influence of Paul himself". 1 

The conviction became steadily stronger in my mind 
that the book was a unity, and that one part could not be 
separated from the rest as true, while the remainder of the 
book stood on a lower level of trustworthiness. The author 
is very emphatic about the excellence of his authorities 
(Luke I. 1-3), and allows no exceptions : he is trustworthy 
as a whole, or not at all. The quality of his work is as 
uniform as the style. Those parts in which the historian 
speaks as an eye-witness, the " We-passages," are not more 
or less Lukan in character, not more free from marvellous 
accompaniments, than the rest. This is fully acknowledged 

1 " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 6. 
(199) 



2OO XVI. Trustworthiness of the Acts, 

by Dr. Harnack, 1 who concludes that Luke had a constitu 
tional tendency towards the marvellous, and could not 
avoid seeing events in that light. This judgment is a 
matter of personal quality, and is quite in the critical style 
of the nineteenth century, whereas Harnack writes often 
from the point of view of the twentieth century. The 
present writer's experience leads him to feel more and more 
convinced, as the years pass, that the world around is full 
of the marvellous and the incomprehensible, if one has eyes 
to see rightly. 

There is among many modern people a strong inclination 
to doubt such general statements as those in Acts V. 12, 
" by the hands of the Apostles were many signs and wonders 
wrought among the people," or VIII. 7, " from many of 
those which had unclean spirits they came out ; and many 
that were palsied and that were lame were healed ". Along 
with this doubt follows a general tendency to rate low the 
credibility of the book in which such statements occur, 
and the intelligence of the author who admits them. But 
we should take into consideration the character of an 
Oriental population, where physicians and medical attend 
ance are almost unknown and magicians abound, where 
ignorance and a low standard of living and of thought are 
prevalent, and where that peculiar class of trouble or disease 
called in the New Testament " possession by devils " is rife. 
I feel convinced that those who can appreciate from experi 
ence the actual situation and conditions of such a state of 
society, will be the slowest to doubt the credibility of state 
ments like those which have just been quoted. Now 
imagine that amid this Oriental population, keenly suscept- 

1 Harnack, " Lukas der Artzt Verfasser des III. Evang. und d. Apostel- 
gesch," p. 60, points out that the " We-passages " are thoroughly Lukan in 
style : see " Luke the Physician and other Studies," pp. 4, 34, 38. 



Chapters I to XII. 201 

ible to religious emotions and strongly influenced already 
by many superstitious ideas and customs, a great religious 
idea is introduced and propagated widely through the 
degraded masses by one extraordinary personality and by 
a devoted enthusiastic group of followers, all themselves 
men and women of eminent power and magnetic influence. 
Take into consideration the strange and yet indubitable 
facts of faith-healing, and similar phenomena. No one 
who weighs the conditions of this question can regard these 
general statements in the Acts as improbable in themselves, 
or as detracting from the credibility of the book as a whole. 
The present writer can only assert his own conviction that 
those statements express just what would be likely to occur. 
Some slight account of the situation where belief in de 
monic influence grows strong is given above in chapter IX. 

At the same time it must be frankly acknowledged that 
the general prevalence of such conditions must always lead 
to the too ready acceptance without investigation of parti 
cular instances ; and that many of the individual cases 
would not stand rigorous examination. Not every mendi 
cant who pretends to be ill is really so. Imposture and 
trading on pretended diseases would be detected in many 
cases. 

Yet none the less do even these examples of common 
delusion attest the reality of the curative influence. The 
public mind and body have as a whole been diseased, and 
they undergo a health-giving renovation. The impostor 
who deludes the world with his pretended disease of body 
is really diseased in soul ; and it is no small thing that his 
mind should be cured and his life transformed into a healthy 
one. But most of the so-called impostors are physically 
diseased to some extent as well as morally diseased in their 
whole nature. Exceptions indeed occur, in which the pre- 



2O2 XVI, Trustworthiness of the Acts, 

tended sufferer from incurable disease or loss of eyesight 
or so on, is perfectly sound ; but generally there is nervous 
or other malady of some kind as well as moral disease. 

Cures effected in these cases furnish real proofs of 
the power which the new religious idea exerts on those 
whom it seizes. The medical expert would not label the 
disease and the cure exactly as the popular opinion does ; 
but there is in each case a disease, and a cure is effected. 

Luke, however, claims to be a good authority, because he 
has his narrative from the authority of eye-witnesses ; and 
in most cases we can determine who were the witnesses. 
Yet the strictly scientific inquirer will not be satisfied with 
the evidence even of eye-witnesses in the case of every cure, 
or of raising from the dead. Was the witness competent 
to distinguish death from mere suspended animation ? Did 
the witness really test the case ? I have myself seen a man 
brought in from the harvest-field, washed and prepared for 
burial, mourned in the vehement Oriental style, carried to 
his grave and buried ; but I should be a bad witness to his 
death, because the suspicion has always haunted me that 
the man was perhaps not dead Of those scores of wit 
nesses, probably only my wife and myself had any doubt as 
to the man's death ; and in the hurry of events for little 
more than two hours elapsed between the man's collapse in 
the field and his deposition in the tomb everything was so 
convincing that it was only after all was over that we began 
to ask each other, " was that man really dead ? " 1 

That the circumstances in all those incidents occurred as 
Luke relates there is not the smallest reason to doubt. The 

1 Nothing is more difficult than to be quite certain that death has occurred, 
even for a physician. I know well a man who, after long illness, was pro 
nounced dead by the excellent doctors and nurses in Paris who had been attend 
ing him, yet he recovered. 



Chapters I to XII. 203 

inference from the facts may, however, be doubtful. That 
the lame man at Lystra was really lame, and not an arrant 
impostor, must be taken as certain : he was known from 
childhood as lame : he had been a beggar l familiar to every 
one in the small city of Lystra, and all believed in the reality 
of his lameness and the extraordinary nature of the cure. 
Yet, when the medical expert comes to examine the case, 
he will ask whether the theory of unconscious imposture 
might not be admissible. The physician can give many ex 
amples of mental disease simulating such bodily conditions 
as lameness. The case was not critically examined at the 
time. We have started from the assumption that mental 
and nervous diseases of an obscure kind must have been 
numerous in the state of society which existed at that time 
in western Asia. 

Even supposing, however, that the lame man might have 
been an unconscious impostor, who thought he was lame 
and had never walked, the incident remains just as marvel 
lous as if he were really lame. 2 His mind was cured, and 
he saw his real self. Such apparent lameness might be 
due to nervous causes ; but none the less it is lameness. 

There is little to be gained for our purpose by investigat 
ing each case. That is a subject for the medical expert 
The question in such an investigation would be how the 
facts should be labelled. What scientific name shall we 
apply? The facts stand recorded in their external as- 

1 The man is not stated to have been a beggar ; but what is said about 
him leaves no doubt in the mind of anyone acquainted with the habits of 
the Mediterranean peoples, that he was sitting (perhaps at a gate as a good 
beggar's station) a mendicant (Acts xiv. 7). 

2 The state of his ankles and feet, after many years spent without walking, 
would have been exactly as described in Acts. The account states as the 
climax, that " he never walked ". That was the outcome of the evidence as 
known to an eye-witness. 



2O4 XVI. Trustworthiness of the Acts, 

pect, as they would appear to unscientific witnesses. They 
are sufficient evidence that the individual was abnormal and 
diseased in some way, and that he was restored to normal 
existence and to happiness. 

Such incidents, too, attest sufficiently the remarkable 
spiritual power over the minds and bodies exerted by the 
Apostles in the way of bringing men to a reasonable, natural 
and healthy condition ; but this in itself does not prove that, 
because a person who believes is cured, therefore his belief 
is truth. Belief in a delusion may sometimes produce a 
curative effect, though only in exceptional cases. That this 
was not a case of delusion has to be proved by other 
reasons, of which there is abundance. 

A strong and general popular belief is a great power. 
The new idea as preached by the Apostles had this great 
power supporting it and pushing it forward. And there 
was no pretence on the side of the Apostles and of the 
Church. They felt and knew what a revolution they were 
making in the world. They saw with their own eyes that 
the souls and bodies of men were growing healthier around 
them ; and they knew that the cause was simply and solely 
belief in the Jesus whom they were preaching. Their own 
faith was made stronger by those cures, as well as* the faith 
and character of the people that were cured. 

We need not enter on the question whether the Apostles 
were possessed of any personal healing power, which acted 
independently of any faith or belief felt by the patient. For 
our purposes that is immaterial ; J but the remarkable 
article by Dr. Schofield in the " Contemporary Review," 
March, 1909, on "Spiritual Healing," maybe quoted as 
evidence that modern medical science accepts the view that 

J They always claimed to act and to have power only in the name of 
Jesus. 



Chapters I to XII. 205 

some people possess such personal power. 1 Still even on 
his showing the fact is clear that the faith of the patient is 
an enormously potent influence and by far the most common. 
Cure by the simple power of the healer must be always rare 
and exceptional ; and the record of a cure seems more 
credible when it lays stress on the faith of the person cured. 
That was the case with the lame man at . Lystra. Paul, 
fixing his gaze on him, saw that he had the faith which gave 
him the capability of being saved. 

It is, however, needless, irrational, and unfair to require 
that Luke's narrative should be like the report of a nerve- 
specialist. He tells us what seemed to the spectators to 
happen, just as he had heard it from them, or as in various 
cases he had himself seen it. He is very careful in many 
cases to define, with accuracy unusual in an ancient writer, 
exactly how much was vouched for to him and how much 
he was prepared to guarantee. 2 

The best and probably the most scientific way is to read 
the Acts simply, gather from it the opinions of those 
who were eye-witnesses, and give this its full value, but 
always to remember that they were not medical experts. 
The general opinion and impression will prove quite good 
enough for a fair judgment. 

It is matter for a special book to study the authorities 
whom Luke used for the first part of his history. The 
present writer's view is that Luke was careful to indicate 
his authorities, not indeed by formal quotation as a modern 
writer would, but indirectly. A good deal rests on the 
authority of Philip the Deacon, with whom Luke was long 

1 The fact that some people are, so to say, walking stores of typhoid 
infection, without themselves developing fully the disease, is not exactly 
parallel, for degeneration is more catching than health. 

8 In " St. Paul the Traveller " this feature is pointed out in several cases. 
At Lystra the disciples " supposed that Paul was dead ". 



2o6 XVI. Trustworthiness of the Acts, 

in intimate relation, first when Paul and his company landed 
in Caesarea, and afterwards during Paul's imprisonment 
there. Those parts which describe Philip's own action are 
marked by great modesty : he keeps himself secondary, 
and speaks of Peter and John as standing on a higher rank, 
and wielding more authority than himself. 

The episode of the Ethiopian is an exception : this 
figure, in short, finds a place in Luke's pages mainly for the 
purpose of bringing into relief the character and power and 
influence of Philip, and not as indicating an important direc 
tion in the growth of the new Faith towards the south. 
Such a story was not gathered from Philip himself, but 
from a warm admirer of Philip. Yet admiration does not 
affect the representation of the facts. The same limitation 
to Philip's power is observable here as at Samaria. Philip 
can only baptize ; his influence does not carry with it the 
gift of the Spirit. 

Our view, therefore, is that the Ethiopian episode was 
included by Luke rather with a view to showing the char 
acter of Philip than with the intention of describing a step 
in the growth of the Church. Luke appreciated the great 
men who had made the early Church, and was resolved 
that his readers should appreciate them also. He knew 
that no impressive view of history can be given or acquired, 
unless the dominating figures are set in their true light. 
He was writing for the congregations of the Graeco-Roman 
world ; and one of his main objects was to move them, and 
to affect their life. To do this it was above all things neces 
sary to put before them in their true colours the great 
figures Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul. Luke had at the 
same time the Greek sense of historic truth and of propor 
tion : he shows those figures to us in action, and never 
merely describes them. 



Chapters I to XII. 207 

For example, the scene of the voyage and shipwreck in 
chapter xxvil. is not directly important in itself for the de 
velopment of the Church ; but it is highly important as 
illuminating the character of Paul and showing how, even as a 
prisoner and a landsman at sea, he became the dominating 
personage in a great ship's company as soon as danger 
threatened ; and it also draws the reader's attention to the 
central and critical importance of the scene towards which 
it leads up, viz. the trial of Paul in Rome. 

So, also, the Ethiopian episode places Philip before the 
reader in a new light. Henceforth we realize his character 
and his action in a very different way; Philip now rises 
from the level of a second-rate figure almost to the higher 
plane on which Peter and Paul move. Even the Samarian 
episode assumes a different character, when it is read in the 
light of the Ethiopian incident. 

Such seems to be the intention of Luke, when he gives 
the story of the Ethiopian eunuch a place in his history. 
He heard it, not from Philip himself, but from the pro 
phetesses his daughters, one or all. It was the prophetesses 
who imparted the spirit of the Old Testament to the story, 
regarding their father after the fashion of an old Hebrew 
prophet, who went forth into the wilderness, to whom the mes 
senger of the Lord spoke, who was caught away by the Spirit 
when he had done what he was ordered to do. The narrative 
impressed the imagination of Luke, and has been recorded 
by him in the same tone in which he heard it. It is markedly 
different in certain ways from the Samarian narrative. 

It shows us how Philip impressed those among whom he 
lived ; and we recognize in him the person who was fitted 
to write the Epistle to the Hebrews. 1 He was a great ad- 

1 The writer's view on this subject is stated in a paper in " Luke the 
Physician," pp. 301-28. 



2o8 XVI. Trustworthiness of the Acts. 

mirer of Peter, and yet he had the freedom of mind that 
fitted him to appreciate Paul. The self-suppression that 
characterizes the part of the Acts where he was Luke's 
authority is also evident in the Epistle, where the writer 
never mentions himself, and where the first person singular 
appears only a a literary form. 1 The personality of this 
great leader of the early Church will yet be recovered in far 
more complete fashion by a careful study of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews in its relation to the portions of the Acts 
which depend on the testimony of Philip. 

Luke had known John Mark, and he had certainly seen 
and entered the house of Mary his mother. The way in 
which he uses evidence gathered there is studied as regards 
one incident in the following chapter XVII. 

1 See " Luke the Physician," p. 324. 



CHAPTER XVII 

RHODA THE SLAVE-GIRL 

THE writer's view is that Luke has always a definite pur 
pose in mentioning any individual a purpose bearing on 
the plan of his history, and not a mere desire for literary 
effect. The case of the slave-girl Rhoda in chapter XII. 
may seem to be an exception. It may be thought that 
the details of her action are recorded only for their pictur 
esque and literary value. While Luke was certainly quite 
sensible of this value, he has another purpose in view. He 
knows the very inmost feelings in Rhoda's mind, her joy 
as she heard the voice of Peter, her fluttering eagerness 
which defeated her own desire by leaving Peter in the 
street in danger of discovery while she ran into the inner 
house to tell the news, her confidence that she was right 
while the others disbelieved her and thought she was mad. 
This is the way in which Luke intimates to us that he had 
himself talked to Rhoda, and had her own evidence to go 
upon. Only from her, or from some one who took a warm 
personal interest in her, could he have learned these details ; 
and there was no one who would interest himself in the 
slave-girl's emotions, and treasure up such information 
to retail to Luke. We have here personal recollection, 
narrated to Luke by the maid herself, and caught by his 
sympathetic and appreciative mind. 

Incidentally, we notice here the close and friendly rela 
tion between the slave-girl and the family and its friends. 

(209) 14 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 



Rhoda knows Peter's voice, is full of joy at hearing it, forgets 
in her joy her duty as a servant, and runs in to impart 
the glad news to the family as a friend. She is in the 
most real sense a part of the household, fully sharing in 
the anxieties and the joys of the family, knowing the 
family's friends as her own friends. As has been said 
above, it is impossible to judge ancient society and life 
from the proper point of view, unless this unity of the 
household is fully appreciated. 1 

The story of Peter's release from prison is palpitating 
with life. There is nothing quite so picturesque, after a 
certain fashion, in the whole of Luke's work as this scene : 
but the fashion is not exactly that of Luke's pictures gener 
ally. This scene stands apart by itself, just as the Ethiopian 
scene also stands alone. Some special authority was followed 
by Luke in each case for one scene and no more. The 
ultimate authority for the facts of Peter's escape was, 
necessarily, himself. No other had seen the facts. No 
other person could tell what thoughts, and what confusion, 
filled Peter's mind. No one heard his soliloquy, when 
the angel left him in the street. But the description of the 
scene was not got by Luke from Peter's lips : it has all the 
character of a narrative by a spectator, who was present 
in Mary's house and listened with eager interest and reten 
tive memory to his hurried account of his deliverance. 
The listener's attention, of course, was concentrated on 
Peter ; and the Apostle's narrative was brief and confined 
to the facts which were most important in his hearers' 
estimation and his own. He had already lost some valu 
able minutes while Rhoda was talking with the incredulous 
people inside and maintaining that Peter himself was at 

1 See above, pp. 187, 192. 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 211 

the door. His escape might be noticed at any moment, an 
alarm raised, and strict search made for the fugitive. 

Accordingly, when he is relating all that had happened, 
neither does Peter tell, nor do the hearers ask, what the 
two soldiers watching in his cell were doing, what the two 
sets of sentinels on guard outside the cell " the first and 
the second ward" were doing, whether all were asleep. 
We gather later that the escape was not discovered until the 
next morning. As Peter had been roused from sound 
sleep by a blow on his side, and was as in a dream throughout 
the whole escape, and only awoke to full consciousness after 
he was clear of the prison and the angel had left him, his 
account would naturally take little notice of surrounding 
circumstances, and be restricted to the facts that had most 
strongly impressed him ; he saw nothing else, and was con 
scious only of those urgent facts, and that in a dim and 
half-dreamy fashion. No questions were put to him by 
any of his hearers on those other circumstances, or, if put 
(which is extremely improbable), they were not answered : J 
although information about them might be useful in view 
of his escape from Jerusalem and the chances of immediate 
pursuit. It was sufficient for the little crowd of listeners 
to have a clear conception of the really important factors 
in the situation the distress of the Church in the prospect 
of losing its most influential and guiding spirit : 2 the earnest 
prayers of its members : the wonderful deliverance by " a 
messenger of the Lord " at the very moment when those 

1 Implying that Peter either had no information to give or no desire to 
give it. But, considering the character of the Oriental audience, I should 
feel very confident that no questions were asked, and that the description 
of the scene is perfect and complete in all essentials. 

2 James was now evidently regarded as the head of the Church in Jeru 
salem; but that was probably due to the frequent absence of Peter on 
external duty (vin. 14, 25, ix. 32, Gal. n. 12). 



212 XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 

prayers were being made most insistently and distressfully 
in the last night before the execution. These are the 
features set clearly and strongly before the reader in the 
whole narrative, and only one of them, viz. the deliver 
ance, belongs to Peter himself or could originate from him. 
His story is, in the strictest sense, only subsidiary to the 
greater story of the Church's need ; and it is placed before 
us from that point of view. 

In short, as has been said, we have here the authorita 
tive statement of a Christian who listened to Peter, and had 
prayed for Peter. But the circumstances were such as 
to impress Peter's words indelibly on the memory of his 
hearers : we have the scene before us in all its intensity 
and anxiety, yet in every stage deliberate and unhurried. 
Even Peter's dressing is described point by point ; he and 
his guide move on in the light, but the light shines in dark 
ness, and all that does not concern their acts from moment 
to moment is shrouded in the darkness. 

The narrator was Rhoda. Luke had listened to her. 
He had doubtless heard the tale from others, e.g. from 
John Mark, perhaps, when they were together in Rome * 
or elsewhere. Probably he heard Rhoda tell the story in 
the house of Mary, and in the presence of other witnesses 
who could corroborate or correct her. But she needed no 
correction. It was the great event of her life, and she told 
it in that striking fashion in which we read it. Luke re 
cognized that her narrative gave the true spirit of the 
scene ; and he used the narratives of others only as sub 
sidiary. 

If we are right in this interpretation of the source, the 
story of Peter's deliverance lies before us almost in his very 

1 Colossians iv. ; Philemon. 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 213 

words and certainly in the exact details of the facts, as they 
were described within an hour after they occurred by the 
one man who knew them. This has a most important bear 
ing on the trustworthiness of the Acts. There is no room 
here for invention or for the growth of legend. People 
were too eager : the need was too great : no one could do 
anything except under the overpowering urgency of the 
danger. All the persons who played a part in the scene 
were compelled by the circumstances to be themselves for 
the moment, and to strip off all pretence and regard to out 
ward appearance. Eripitur persona : manet res. 

That this interpretation is the true one must be felt by 
every one who has the literary and the historic sense for 
reality. Luke, according to his custom, 1 gives the story of 
his informants with an added touch of literary skill, but 
never such a touch as to disturb the simplicity and the vivid 
rush and hurry of the original ; and Rhoda is the main 
authority. 

Now, given this tale, based on this supremely excellent 
testimony, related to Luke thirteen years after the event, 
and, doubtless, often related in the interval, what are we 
to make of it ? We have here a test case of the worth of 
the class of evidence on which (as I believe) ultimately the 
whole three Synoptic Gospels rest, as well as much of Acts : 
the evidence is that of eye-witnesses, and absolutely honest, 
truthful witnesses. What is its value ? what are its defects ? 
It is obvious, on the surface, that we in one sense do not know 
exactly what happened in the prison, but that much is en 
veloped in obscurity, and observed almost in a dream ; and 

1 Harnack has demonstrated this custom fully in his " Lukas der Artzt ". 
Salmon has anticipated in his brief and telling fashion most of the correct 
views in Harnack's book ; and the very notable agreement in point after point 
reveals a certain kinship in nature between the two. 



214 XVII. Rhoda the Slave- Girl. 

that in another sense we know on the very best evidence 
all the really important and critical facts of the case. 

As has been said, Peter's escape is described to us by 
Luke in words closely approximating to those in which the 
fugitive narrated it to the group of the Saints at Mary's 
door within an hour after it occurred. It would be difficult 
to find any narrative of an escape from prison better authen 
ticated, or related amid circumstances which exclude more 
absolutely the supposition either of falsification, or of the 
growth of legend. The description of the scene at the house 
must convince the unprejudiced judge, who examines the 
evidence critically, that Luke had listened to the story as it 
was related in the presence of several other witnesses of the 
scene by Rhoda herself, and that he intends to convey to 
his readers that he had been in the house and heard the 
story there. 

In the story we hear not a word about the conduct of the 
guards, of whom three sets had to be passed. Were they, 
so to say, hypnotized by the angel, or drugged, or bribed ? 
Did Peter iand the messenger pass among them without 
being visible? The supposition that they were asleep 
naturally cannot be entertained where so many were con 
cerned, all bound by their duty to be vigilant and all re 
sponsible for their vigilance with their life. Under the head 
of hypnotism we may include any and every kind of super 
human influence which prevented the guards from observ 
ing what was going on. The Divine power, if we adopt 
the theory that the deliverance was accomplished in a super 
natural manner, acts through natural means so far as pos 
sible ; and there must have been some reason evident to an 
observer why the guards did not take notice of what was 
going on, not even of the opening of the outer gate, until 
the morning. 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 215 

Peter's story explains in part why he observed so little, 
and why the circumstances are left so obscure. He was 
wakened out of sleep evidently a deep sleep by a blow 
on the side ; but he was still in such a confused, half- 
awakened state, that he believed all was a dream, until out 
in the street he found himself alone, after the " messenger 
of God" had disappeared. Then at last the cold night 
air and the continuous exercise restored his faculties, and 
he began to review the situation. He was a practical man, 
not an observer and student of psychical phenomena. He 
misses out what would interest the man of scientific temper : 
" when he was come to himself he said, ' Now I know of a 
truth, that the Lord hath sent forth His messenger and 
delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the 
expectation of the people of the Jews ' ". He pictures to 
himself the scene on the morrow, the disappointment of 
the people, and the annoyance of the monarch whose hand 
and power had proved so feeble. He was conscious of 
this side of the situation first ; and then later came the 
thought of escape, and of what immediate steps he should 
take to save himself. The order of his thoughts shows a 
calm and sane intellect, with a distinct sense of humour. 
A fussy or timid person would have thought at such a mo 
ment only of flight and safety. Peter, as we can gather 
from this scene, even if we knew nothing else about him, 
was a man far above the common in respect of coolness, 
courage, and presence of mind. He resolved that the best 
thing to do was to retire to some obscure spot, after first 
relieving the anxiety of the brethren about his safety. 

We observe that Peter had to think over the situation 
before he came to the conclusion that his deliverer was a 
messenger of the Lord. He had not as yet been conscious 
of anything apparently supernatural in the circumstances, 



2i6 XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl 

except that the gate " opened of its own accord ". l He 
knew of no agent or instrument pushing It, but saw it open 
before him. Otherwise the accompaniments were all 
natural : the light was needed in the dark cell : he fastened 
his girdle round his tunic, and put on his thick upper gar 
ment and his sandals, before going out into the cold night. 
The chains had indeed dropped off from his hands ; but 
this occurred first of all at the very moment that he was 
wakened, and he had no knowledge how the fastenings 
were unloosed. The " messenger" or " angel " appeared to 
him, therefore, in ordinary human form ; and Peter only 
inferred his superhuman mission from subsequent reflexion 
about the circumstances. During the escape from the 
prison Peter was not in a condition to think ; he simply 
obeyed and acted. When, standing alone in the street, 
he collected his thoughts and reviewed the situation, he 
concluded that the deliverance was the act of God. 

Now, since previously the steps of the action had pro 
ceeded without his observing anything supernatural in 
the appearance or conduct of the deliverer, it is not 
necessary to understand from the conclusion which he 
stated, that the deliverer was a supernatural being. In the 
life of such people in modern times as Dr. Barnardo, who 
from small means have built up vast and beneficial organiza 
tions in reliance on the help of God, that help has come 
always in apparently natural ways. When a stranger in a 
hotel in Oxford, noticing Barnardo's name in the visitors' 
list, told him that he would make the first Village Home 
for girls, " we need not say that Dr. Barnardo and his friend 

1 This is a very vague thought in the mind of an Oriental, and is perfectly 
consistent with other explanations besides that of supernatural action. At 
the same time, I do not doubt that Luke understood it to imply supernatural 
agency. 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 217 

received this as an answer to prayer, doubting not that the 
hand of God was in it ". Was Peter, or were any of the 
early Christians at that time, less able or likely to recognize 
the hand of God in the affairs of the world than Dr. Bar- 
nardo and his friend ? On the contrary, the Oriental mind 
is far more prone to see the hand of God in everything that 
goes on around us than the English mind is. To the Orien 
tal God is always very close. The Oriental thinks and 
speaks of God far more frequently and familiarly than we 
do; and yet in his way of introducing the Divine name 
and supposing the Divine presence and action in the most 
common affairs of life, there is no irreverence. He does 
so, because he feels that God is always moving in all that 
goes on, great and small ; that " not a sparrow falls to 
the ground without Him ". We, on the other hand, tend 
to reserve the action of God for the big things, with the 
result that the logical mind, which cannot see any reason 
able distinction between the small and the big things, fails, 
and must necessarily fail, to see that hand anywhere. Was 
not Barnardo more near the truth when he saw the hand 
of God in the bestowal of a needed subscription, and read 
in this act the fulfilment of his prayers ? 

Such is the Oriental view, at any rate ; and there cannot 
be a doubt that, whether or not Peter actually knew his 
deliverer to be a real human being, he would equally con 
fidently conclude that this was an angel, the bearer of the 
power of God. Peter's words should be judged from his 
own point of view, as they were meant. The Church was 
in the direst need, when its leader was on the eve of death. 
The Church engaged in earnest prayers. The prayers were 
answered. So much is certain ; and we may safely assert 
that, whether the deliverer was man or a supernatural being, 
he was equally " the messenger of God,' 1 in Oriental phrase. 



2i8 XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 

Further, we may take it as certain that the escape occurred 
in the darkest part of the night, before the moon rose. The 
night following the last day of Unleavened Bread was the 
twenty-second of the moon, which therefore rose very late. 
The deliverance was doubtless timed, so that Peter should 
have a long period of darkness to place himself beyond the 
reach of pursuit. All the more remarkable is it that his 
escape was not observed until the next morning. The 
dawning was not very early at that season of the year ; and 
several hours must therefore have elapsed before the guards 
observed the facts, and began to inquire what had become 
of Peter. It is not stated whether the outer gate closed 
behind the fugitive, or remained open. Peter observed 
only what bore on his immediate movements, and evidently 
never looked behind him, until he collected his thoughts 
in the street at some distance from the prison. But we 
cannot suppose it possible that the outer gate of the State 
prison remained open for hours, especially after the moon 
had risen, without some one perceiving it and giving the 
alarm. The gate, therefore, must certainly have been 
closed by the same agency which, unseen by Peter, had 
opened it, naturally or supernaturally, to let him go out. 

Now there cannot be a doubt that the "messenger" 
who struck Peter on the side and guided him had human 
form, and had opened the door of the cell ; for Peter, who 
described the other details so exactly, seems to assume that 
this door was open, and that only the outer iron gate at the 
top of the seven steps needed to be opened before them. 1 
But, though the " messenger" had the form of a man (like 
"the messenger" who appeared to Cornelius), 2 he was 

1 The seven steps are mentioned only in the Western Text. 

2 Acts x. 30 : when Cornelius tells the story he speaks only of " a man in 
bright apparel " ; others speak of a " messenger," or " angel," of God, 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 219 

to Peter merely an instrument used by the Divine power. 
God works through natural instruments and agents ; and 
Peter had none of the desire which we feel to investigate 
and state precisely the nature of each stage in his escape. 
The supernatural and the natural were not separated to his 
mind by any clear dividing line ; the one melted into the 
other, and he was not interested in drawing the line between 
them. 

Luke also was not interested to divide precisely the region 
of the natural from that of the supernatural. On the con 
trary, it would rather seem that he in many cases purposely 
leaves a debatable ground between the two. Those who, 
like the present writer, assume as the starting-point of their 
thought, that the Divine Power does continually exert itself 
in the affairs of the world, must recognize that at some 
point the Divine intervention (which is in its origin beyond 
our ken) becomes knowable to us, i.e. at some point it be 
gins to act through means and in ways that are amenable 
to the ordinary laws of experience and reason. But where 
does that point lie? To answer that question is always 
difficult. To answer it in the case of Peter's deliverance is 
impossible, because Luke intentionally or unintentionally 
the present writer believes, intentionally leaves the line of 
demarkation in obscurity. Does the so-called natural action 
in this process begin only when Peter stood alone in the 
street, and was it previously all " supernatural " ? Or did 
it begin with the agent of the deliverance, in whose heart 
the thought was born and the means were carefully planned 
out ? We cannot say with certainty. But we can say with 
certainty that every one, whether he prefers to make the 
" supernatural " element larger or smaller, must acknowledge 
that at some point that element ceases and the ordinary and 
" natural " begins ; and we can feel great confidence that 



22O XV I L Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 

Luke, who was generally disposed to enlarge the sphere of 
the supernatural, purposely leaves the transition obscure. 

Now there is no doubt that at the court of the Herods, 
just as later at the court of many Roman Emperors, the 
Christians had friends, sympathizers, and even adherents. 
Slight references occur in the Gospels and the Acts, which 
may half reveal a considerable background of fact. The 
wife of Herod's steward was a follower of Jesus. The 
" foster-brother " of Herod, 1 Menahem, was one of the lead 
ing Christians, prophet or teacher, at Antioch. Others 
have observed and collected these indications; and it is 
not necessary here to enlarge on them. There is therefore 
nothing improbable in the supposition that some person 
influential in the entourage of Herod Agrippa I. had skil 
fully engineered the escape of Peter. The occasion was well 
chosen, as we have seen, in respect of darkness. Even if 
Peter had suspected or known who the deliverer was, he 
would not have mentioned the name at a street door ; and 
he would equally have regarded his helper as "the messen 
ger of God ". 

This case is typical of what can fairly be expected in the 
narrative of the New Testament, and of the limitations which 
must be allowed for. The essential facts and the spiritual 
truth are placed beyond doubt in this story, for they rest 
on evidence of the highest kind. But those who are bent 
on knowing the commonplace facts, those who regard it as 
the most important part of this historical scene to learn who 

X I cannot wholly agree with Prof. Deissmann's argument in his 
" Bible Studies," p. 310 ff., that this term was merely a court title. I think 
that every one who comes into contact for a time with the life of the Levant 
lands, and knows how great a part in it is played by foster-mothers and 
foster-brothers, will be slow to accept some of the sentences in his argument. 
He writes like one used to German ways of life, and taking these as univer 
sally applicable. 



XVII. Rhoda the Slave-Girl. 221 

managed the escape, and how the guards were evaded, will 
be disappointed : it is utterly impossible from the evidence 
to do more than make a vague conjecture, founded on 
general considerations and not on the special evidence, about 
these matters. The reason is that such things were indif 
ferent both to Peter and to Luke : they are mere details, 
which do not in any way affect Peter's conceptions of real 
and spiritual truth, and the evidence does not even in the 
remotest way bear on matters of this class. The historian 
and the sociologist may long to know what was the relation 
of the royal court to the new Faith : it would be to such 
scientific inquirers a matter of real value to know whether 
some person who possessed influence at court managed the 
escape. Luke, however, did not write for them. Luke 
wrote for the Christian congregations of the Graeco-Roman 
world : and he told what was of permanent value for those 
whom he had in mind as readers. This principle must be 
applied in general throughout the New Testament narrative. 
In the houses of Philip and of Mary, and in other houses 
of Palestine and Jerusalem, Luke had learned the general 
tradition of the early Church at its source within less than 
thirty years after the Crucifixion. It is this general tradi 
tion that dictates the conceptions which are expressed 
in his history. The historian caught the idea as it was still 
fresh and young and living in the hearts and lives of eye 
witnesses, and it lives for us in his pages. This gives a 
unique value to both the Gospel and the Acts. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

APPROACH TO THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 

IN two books already mentioned l the result of some years 
of study were stated ; the opinions in the first are much less 
developed than in the second. In the former it is main 
tained that the Acts may justly be quoted as a trustworthy 
historical authority. In the latter the purpose is to show 
that Luke is a historian of the first rank ; not merely are 
his statements of fact trustworthy ; he is possessed of the 
true historic sense ; he fixes his mind on the idea and plan 
that rules in the evolution of history ; and proportions the 
scale of his treatment to the importance of each incident. 
He seizes the important and critical events and shows their 
true nature at greater length, while he touches lightly or 
omits entirely much that was valueless for his purpose. In 
short, this author should be placed along with the very 
greatest of historians. 

It is no part of the present plan to repeat, or even to 
give a resume of, the argument stated in those two volumes ; 
but only to show how they form a step in the growth of a 
better, fuller, and truer understanding of the meaning and 
the immense value of the historian Luke's work in two 
parts, the Gospel and the Acts. 

The second of those volumes was reviewed at some length 
by a distinguished foreign scholar. He gave a quite fair 
resume of the book, and then disproved the opinion which 

1 " The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 " (1892) ; " St. Paul 
the Traveller " (1894). 

(222) 



XVIII. Approach to the Gospel of Luke. 223 

is championed in it about Luke's rank as a historian in one 
brief concluding sentence : if Luke is a great historian, 
what would the author of this book make of Luke II. 1-3 ? 
Nothing more was needed. This brief question was sufficient. 

It was at that time fully admitted on all hands that the 
statements in that passage are entirely unhistorical. Not 
merely did theological critics brush them aside as incredible, 
every one that had any acquaintance with Roman Imperial 
history regarded them as false and due either to blundering 
or to pure invention. There are in it four statements about 
the action of the Roman Imperial government which the 
critics of the New Testament pronounced to be incredible 
and false. 

Now we are bound by the principle which has been 
already stated on p. 80. The great historian is great in 
virtue of his permanent quality of mind. If an author can 
be guilty of any such perversion of history as has been 
attributed to the writer of Luke II. 1-3, he cannot deserve 
the rank and name of a historian. After reading the review 
I began for the moment to feel guilty of pronouncing an 
opinion on part of the evidence : I had not taken the Gospel 
of Luke into consideration, but had written with my eye 
on the Acts of the Apostles and mainly on the second half 
of the book. I had assumed that, if Luke shows himself a 
true historian there, he must be so everywhere ; and the 
critic retorted in crushing style that, since he showed himself 
not to be a trustworthy historian elsewhere, he could not 
be so in the second half of the Acts. 

The retort could be answered only in one way. Either 
Luke II. 1-3 is good history, or there was something 
seriously wrong about my contention. If this passage is 
historically trustworthy, some proof or probability must be 
established in its favour. 



224 XVIII. Approach to the 

It was not with any intention of replying to the criticism 
that I began to investigate this subject afresh. The review 
had been impersonal and unbiassed : it stated my position 
fairly with a gentle sarcasm, indeed, but still with fairness 
and there was no call to make a formal reply to the con 
cluding question. When some years later I set about 
writing a small book on the subject, " Was Christ born at 
Bethlehem ? " it did not take the form of a reply to criticism, 
but was an investigation to discover truth. 

The investigation was undertaken purely for my own 
satisfaction. A serious difficulty required serious considera 
tion, and might possibly entail either modification of my 
opinion or other wide-reaching results in some other way. 
Bad history and good history could not both come from the 
same author. No rest was possible until I had reached some 
definite conclusion about the Gospel as well as the Acts ; 
and it was necessary to begin from those three verses, as 
being by universal consent the weakest in the work of Luke. 

First of all, a brief recapitulation of opinion on this 
subject is needed ; and we shall state separately the opinion 
of theological critics and of Roman historians. The theo 
logical critics were far more savage in their expression of con 
tempt for and disbelief in Luke's description of the incident 
than the historians ; but it may be presumed that the 
historians know more about the subject than the critics. I 
shall not quote the opinions stated by any historian of 
Rome except Mommsen, Gardthausen, and Wilcken. 1 If I 

1 Wilcken is not strictly a historian, but he is one of the foremost authorities 
on the economics of the Empire in the East, and mainly in Egypt. Gardt- 
hausen's " Life of Augustus " is the largest and most ambitious study of the 
history under that Emperor. I lay no stress on Rostowzew (quoted later), 
the most brilliant and suggestive writer on Roman economics ; the critics do 
not recognize a Russian scholar. 



Gospel of Luke. 225 



were to mention the opinions of English historians, the 
objection might be advanced that they were prejudiced * in 
favour of Luke, or that they were English. 

None of those three distinguished authorities has any 
prejudice in favour of Luke. Wilcken speaks of the passage 
Luke II. 1-3 as "the Lukan legend" (das Lukas-legende), 
and the expression is in exact agreement with the spirit of the 
other two. Yet we shall find that, when details are ex 
amined, the historians differ markedly from the theological 
critics in respect of historical values. 

A number of the German critics, followed by many out 
side of Germany, used until recently to say without hesita 
tion that Augustus never issued any decree ordering a census, 
that there never was under the Empire any regular system 
of census, that where any casual census was held the presence 
of the wife was not required but only of the husband, and 
that his presence was never required at his original home. 
Here are four distinct and separate points, in regard to 
each of which accuracy is demanded from any historian, 
and in regard to each of which Luke was declared confidently 
and triumphantly to fail. Certainly he flatly contradicts 
the assertions of the modern critics ; but, as we shall see, he 
is right and they are wrong. 

The reason for that feeling of triumph on the part of 
many critics lay of course in the desire to discredit the 
superhuman element in the history. Their hostility to 
Luke arose out of their refusal to admit the superhuman 
element in the government of the world. 

Further, in respect of the dating by the governorship of 
Quirinius, it was asserted by a large number of critics, (i) 
that Quirinius never governed Syria until A.D. 5-6, nine years 

1 " Instar theologorum " is the expression used about them by Mommsen. 

15 



226 XVIIL Approach to the 

after the death of Herod, and (2) that the census which he 
then made in Palestine was transferred by Luke's simple 
blundering to the reign of Herod, who died in 4 B.C. Then, 
when this transference had been made in defiance of all 
torical truth, the circumstances and manner of a Roman 
census (which as a matter of fact were unknown to the 
critics) were manipulated and misrepresented by Luke so as to 
make it appear that Joseph of Nazareth came to Bethlehem 
to be counted (which there was no need for him to do), and 
that Mary also came to be counted (although, even if her 
husband had for some reason been required to appear at 
Bethlehem, there was no possible cause why her presence 
should also be called for). The theory of the critics was that 
these fictions were concocted by Luke in order to explain 
why and how the son of persons who lived at Nazareth 
came to be born in Bethlehem. Then to give dignity to 
this whole series of inventions, Luke, according to the 
critics' theory, added that the census was universal for the 
Roman world, and that the decree ordering a universal 
census was issued by the Emperor (who was the only 
authority able to issue such a universal regulation, and who 
therefore was introduced for the purpose). 

Luke has already been proved in the process of discovery 
to be correct in almost every detail of his statement. No 
where in the whole range of historical study has there 
ever been such a complete revolution of opinion and of 
established knowledge as in respect of this statement, which 
brings into its sweep so much of the general principles of 
bureaucratic government and so many details of administra 
tion. The story is now established, and the plea now is that 
Luke's story is a legend because it is true to facts (ch. XX.). 

In this supposed series of errors and fabrications con 
cocted by Luke, we are struck with the fact that most of 



Gospel of Luke. 227 



them are entirely unnecessary. Why should Luke intro 
duce any reference to Augustus, or to the universality of the 
census, or to Quirinius, or to this census being the first, 
unless he had some ground for the statements ? Gratuitous 
and needless blundering was the crime charged against him. 
No explanation was given why he inserted such a tissue of 
falsehoods in his history, except perhaps the desire of an 
ignorant person to show off his scraps of learning, without 
the ability to put them correctly. 

The journey of Joseph and of Mary, however, was a 
necessary and integral part of the fabrication. The other 
details might have been cut out, without affecting the 
Evangelist's purpose those critics would not allow him the 
title of historian but the journey of the parents was a 
necessary invention in order to bring about an agreement 
with old Hebrew prophecy. 1 Those few critics who have 
regarded Jesus as a mythical and unhistorical figure, con 
sidered the entire set of details as equally fictitious. Those 
who admitted that a real Jesus had once existed, maintained 
that he was born at Nazareth of parents who lived there ; 
and that the birth at Bethlehem was a fiction of later time, 
unknown to the Evangelist Mark and to the author of the 
Fourth Gospel. 

Such was the general state of opinion among the so- 
called "critical" theologians; and it was not easy to make 
any headway in opposition to the strong tide of opinion. 
There was hardly any attempt to show up the fallacy, 
ignorance, and pretentiousness of the " critics ". As an 
example of the attitude which was maintained over against 
them by those theologians who refused to accept their 

1 The whole value of the agreement with prophecy lay in its being natural 
and unsought. A fabrication to produce the agreement destroys its import 
ance entirely : see chapter on " Analogies and Fulfilment ". 



228 XVIIL Approach to the 

reasoning, take the words used by Dr. Plummer in his 
Commentary on Luke (in the International Critical Com 
mentary series), 1896, p. 50 : 

" We must be content to leave the difficulty unsolved. 
But it is monstrous to argue that because Luke has (pos 
sibly) made a mistake as to Quirinius being governor at 
this time, therefore the whole story about the census and 
Joseph's journey to Bethlehem is a fiction. Even if there 
was no census at this time, business connected with enrol 
ment might take Joseph to Bethlehem, and Luke would 
be correct as to his main facts. That Luke has con 
fused this census with the one in A.D. 6, which he himself 
mentions in Acts V. 37, is not credible. We are warranted 
in maintaining (i) that a Roman census in Judea at this 
time, in accordance with instructions given by Augustus, is 
not improbable; and (2) that some official connexion of 
Quirinius with Syria and the holding of this census is not 
impossible. The accuracy of Luke is such that we ought 
to require very strong evidence before rejecting any state 
ment of his as an unquestionable blunder." 

We cannot, however, be content with any such partial and 
conditional correctness as Dr. Plummer argues for. In this 
matter either Luke is correct, or he is untrustworthy. It is 
not a case in which some degree of correctness in some 
parts of the story is of any value. It is all or nought. 

Some attempt was made to improve the conditions for 
Luke by the theory that Quirinius governed Syria twice, 
and that the census at the birth of Jesus occurred in his 
first governorship, while the census mentioned by Josephus 
was held in his second governorship. Dr. P. W. Schmiedel, 
however, will have none of this. 1 He dismisses this first 
governorship of Quirinius as a mere groundless fiction, 

1 The historians of Rome agreed with him to a certain point ; see below. 



Gospel of Luke. 229 



ignorant apparently that the best modern historians regard 
it as a fairly certain fact. Although he writes in the 
" Encyclopaedia Biblica " for a general public, which could 
not be expected to know the opinion of Roman historians, 
Dr. Schmiedel does not warn his readers that such unpre 
judiced and high authorities as Mommsen and others were 
dead against him on this point ; and he could hardly have 
expressed himself as he has done, if he had been aware of 
the state of educated historical opinion. His words are as 
follows ("Ency clop. Bibl.," II. 1780): "Quirinius was governor 
of Syria A.D. 6, ten years after this time. The most plausible 
explanation suggested is, perhaps, that Quirinius was twice 
governor of Syria ; but there is no direct, and scarcely any 
indirect evidence to justify the belief. There is also no 
proof that Mary's presence was obligatory." * 

As was observed before in another context, p. 85, we 
remark here that the mere commonplace historians of Rome 
are much more merciful to Luke's account of the census 
than the theological critics. We have just seen what a host 
of errors the latter find in those three verses. Contrast their 
criticism with Mommsen's remarks : 2 " if we have been right 
in the demonstration that Quirinius governed Syria for the 
first time in 3-2 B.C., then Luke, when he fixes the date of 
Christ's birth about 2 B.C. under the government of Quirinius, 3 
has made no assertions that are not probable, except that he 
has wrongly introduced Herod and has transferred the census 
from the second to the first administration of Quirinius ". 

1 The italics in this extract are Schmiedel's, who is apparently so excited 
in the contention against Luke, that mere words are too weak to express his 
stern resolve, and he has recourse to such typographical devices to obtain 
additional emphasis. Or should we understand that the italics are due to 
the editor, whose zeal is said to have led him into taking liberties with the 
articles of contributors ? Schmiedel's objections are both false. 

3 " Res Gestae Divi Aug.," p. 176 f. 

3 Mommsen fixes that date for Quirinius' first governorship. 



230 XVIIL Approach to the 

There will be more to say regarding the matters in respect 
of which Mommsen condemns Luke for inaccuracy ; but for 
our purpose at the moment it is highly important to note 
that, in Mommsen's opinion, all the other points which come 
up in Luke's account are correct. Can we press Mommsen's 
words to their legitimate issue ? or must we say that he has 
written a little hastily ? If we can venture to assume that 
he meant all that lies in his words, then it follows that ac 
cording to the highest single authority on such a matter- 
in a work published in 1883 and never retracted : it is a 
second edition and represents his most mature and long- 
considered judgment Luke's other statements are probable, 
viz. that Augustus issued the decree ordering a world-census, 
and that every person, man and woman, had to go to the 
proper domicile in order to be counted. 

Some might argue that it is doubtful whether Mommsen 
fully meant this, and that probably he thought only of the 
instructions issued by Augustus to Quirinius ordering a 
census of Syria and Palestine ; those instructions would be 
comprised in the general mandata stating what Quirinius 
as governor should do. Those of us, however, who have 
studied Mommsen most carefully and deeply, and have kept 
company with him and his work day after day and year 
after year, know that he means what he says, and that a 
definite historical judgment like this was not stated in a 
loose fashion by him. We must remember that the quota 
tion is from a second edition of his work, almost wholly 
re-written ; and that he had carefully considered and recon 
sidered his opinion on all these matters and modified them 
in some respects. 1 

1 He had in his earlier life denounced the famous Venetian inscription 
mentioning Quirinius as forged in the interest of theological orthodoxy ; but 
he recalled that opinion immediately when part of the actual stone was found 



Gospel of L uke. 2 3 1 



We are bound to accept his words as stating his mature 
judgment : all that Luke says about the institution and 
manner of the census is according to him probably correct. 
Yet the critics continued for many years later to take no 
notice of his opinion, but to reiterate their confident asser 
tion that all the details of the manner of taking the census 
were false. Mommsen's personal friends will feel all the 
more bound to insist that he meant what he said in this 
sentence, because now it is completely proved that what he 
said there is true. Luke is correct in every detail, and 
Mommsen was right in admitting so far the probable truth 
of his statements. 

Mommsen, as we see, has no prejudice in favour of Luke. 
He thinks that Luke was all wrong about Herod, and about 
Quirinius ; and he has nothing but condemnation for those 
who would suggest that Quirinius twice made a census of 
Palestine, during his first and again during his second 
tenure of ofBce in Syria. He declares in the most emphatic 
terms his opinion on this point ; it is not possible that 
Quirinius could have held such a census when he first 
governed Syria, for it is an inadmissible supposition that 
Palestine could have been subjected to a census by the 
governor of Syria, before it was incorporated in the province ; 
and only theologians or persons like theologians, whose 
reason is fettered, would advance such an opinion. As he 
adds, those who know anything about Roman history will 
assert unhesitatingly that Luke made foolish use of Josephus, 
and mixed truth with falsehood in his account of the census ; 
and Tertullian rightly saw what a blunder Luke had been 
guilty of, for he throws Quirinius overboard and states that 
Jesus was born during the census which was held in Judea 

after having long been lost, and the genuineness of the inscription could no 
longer be doubted. 



232 XVIII. Approach to the 

by Sentius Saturninus, 8 B.C. (obviously on the ground that 
the latter governed Syria while Herod was still living). 

As to the other prominent authority on the reign of 
Augustus, Gardthausen, in his very large work, Vol. I p. 
921 f., takes a distinctly less favourable view of Luke than 
Mommsen does, without being nearly so harsh to him as 
the theologians were. Besides those faults which Mommsen 
stigmatizes, Gardthausen also declares that Augustus never 
ordered a general census, for if he had done so he would 
certainly have mentioned this in his review of his own 
achievements ; also that there never was any census-system 
under the Roman Empire, though isolated census were 
made sporadically in all the provinces of the Empire. 

All that Gardthausen says beyond Mommsen's assertions 
may be disregarded ; but two remarks are needed in regard 
to the latter. 

In the first place, evidently Mommsen has read Luke 
rather hurriedly and therefore has not rightly apprehended 
his assertion about the census. Luke does not say (as 
Mommsen declares) that Quirinius conducted the census in 
the year of Christ's birth ; he asserts only that the census 
was made during the time when Quirinius was governing 
Syria. Mommsen has transformed a mere date, given after 
the common ancient fashion by a governor, into an assertion 
that the governor made the census in Palestine. Tertullian, 
it is true, understands the matter so, and asserts that 
Sentius conducted the census ; but Luke is more careful. 
We must not attribute to him statements that he does not 
make. 

In the second place, there followed from this another 
incorrect charge against Luke. Mommsen says that no 
census of Palestine could possibly have been held by the 
governor of Syria before Palestine was incorporated in that 



Gospel of Luke. 233 



province. Now, under Herod the king, Palestine was, so to 
say, an independent and extra-Roman kingdom, where a 
Roman census by a governor of a province could not take 
place. This whole charge falls to the ground when we re 
member what Luke does actually say about Quirinius, viz. 
that the first world-wide census was made while Quirinius 
was governing Syria. Obviously Quirinius is not stated here 
to have made the census anywhere except in his own province. 
He had nothing to do with the census which was assuredly 
made in Egypt, and in Asia, and elsewhere, in that year. 1 

The argument brought forward by Mommsen under this 
head reduces itself automatically, then, to the assertion that 
a census of the Roman world did not apply to Judea, which 
was an independent kingdom not amenable to the orders of 
the Emperor Augustus. This is a very bold statement, 
and Mommsen would hardly have cared to commit himself 
to it, had he not been carried away by his misapprehension 
about the control attributed to Quirinius over the census. 

We know very little about the relation of those so-called 
independent kingdoms to the Roman State. They were not 
independent, but in the strictest sense dependent kingdoms. 
It was pointed out in my book on the subject that they 
formed part of the Roman world, and were understood in 
the Roman system to be outlying countries, which were 
not yet sufficiently well trained to be capable of receiving 
the more honourable rank of provinces, but were in process 
of being trained in obedience and educated up to that level. 
Strabo, who knew the Roman world widely under the rule of 
Augustus, states this in quite clear and emphatic terms. 2 

Augustus's order ran in Judea, when he wished it. Herod 
had to obey, when Augustus ordered, and to be on the out- 

1 1 assume here the results stated in the following chapter. 

2 Strabo, final chapter. " Was Christ Born at Bethlehem ? " p. 120 f. 



234 XVIII. Approach to the 



look even to anticipate what Augustus would desire, and, if 
he did not wish to carry out the order, he had to be careful 
to send an explanation of his reasons and views and to ask 
for permission to disregard the Imperial command 

Whether the order regarding a census of the Roman 
world would apply to the dependent kingdoms was a matter 
for Augustus to say. His word was final. 

In this case we may conclude that Augustus intended the 
edict instituting an Imperial census to apply to the depend 
ent kingdoms. For this confident statement there are two 
reasons. 

In the first place, Luke assumes that it did apply to Judea 
and was carried into effect there, presumably by Herod : 
perhaps he had Roman soldiers to help, but the details are 
quite uncertain. 

In the second place, the census of A.D. 34 was enforced 
in the dependent kingdom of Archelaos, 1 on the border-land 
between the provinces of Galatia and Syria-Cilicia. This 
kingdom was in a position perfectly analogous to Palestine 
under Herod. What applies to the one almost certainly 
applies to the other. 2 The execution of the order provoked 
disturbance among the tribes of Taurus ; and it is only on 
account of the disturbance that we are informed of the census. 

As to the view held by Wilcken, our third non-theological 
witness, regarding the details of the census, we shall quote 
below in chapter XX. his statement of all these details, and 
his opinion that these are correctly described by Luke, and 
that, in fact, Luke evolved his " legend " out of the real facts 
of a census, as he saw it performed period after period 
around him. 

1 This was afterwards given to King Antiochus. 

2 "Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? "p. 161 f., and Tacitus, "Annals," 
vi. 41. 



Gospel of Luke. 235 



What Wilcken calls a legend, however, would more cor 
rectly be styled a fraudulent invention. A legend is vague 
and shadowy. Luke, as he thinks, worked up a falsehood 
so as to be true to the external features of a Roman census. 
As he says, Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem in 
the legend, because at the census every one, male and 
female, must appear personally for enrolment 1 

The theological critics try in one way or other to leave 
Luke some rag of unintentional mistake, so as not to accuse 
him (or the earlier authority whom he quotes) of absolute 
falsification and invention ; but Wilcken regards the legend 
of Joseph and Mary and the child as intentionally 
constructed with an eye on the real details of ordinary 
Roman procedure. According to the critics Luke, while 
desiring to be true, was guilty of an astonishing series of 
blunders in fact. According to Wilcken he tried to palm 
off a falsehood on the world by keeping it true in every de 
tail of fact and accompaniment. These theories are mutually 
destructive. One cannot accept both : we accept neither. 
As in the opening chapter III. of these lectures, it has 
seemed best to give in this chapter a brief statement of the 
general position and the results of modern discovery, and 
afterwards to state these in more detailed fashion in the 
following chapters. Discovery confirms the correctness of 
all the facts that Luke mentions regarding the census and 
its manner and its date. 

The final criticism, however, remains. The truth of the 
historical surroundings in which Luke's narrative places 
the birth of Jesus does not prove that the supreme facts, 
which give human and divine value to the birth, are true- 
It may be in fact it must be admitted as true that " the 

1 The same principle was observed at the Epikrisis : Mitteis and Wilcken, 
" Papyruskunde," i. i. p. 194. 



236 XVIII. Approach to the 

first enrolment " really took place, that Quirinius was 
governing Syria during at least the first half of the year, 
and that the general order was issued in Syria for all to 
return to their own homes in preparation for the enrolment. 
Yet this does not prove that Mary was the mother of Christ, 
as Luke describes Him, and as John and Paul saw Him and 
believed in Him. 

The surrounding facts are matter of history, and can be 
discussed and proved by historical evidence. The essential 
facts of the narrative are not susceptible of discussion on 
historical principles, and do not condescend to be tested by 
historical evidence. That truth exists and moves on a 
higher plane of thought. It is known through the absolute 
insight into the heart of human life and divine nature. It 
comes to, or is granted to, or is forced upon, a man as the 
completion of his experience and the crown of his life and 
the remaking of his nature. It proves itself to the soul of 
man. When he sees it, he knows that it is the one truth 
the one ultimate truth in a world of half-truths, a world 
of preparation, where he is being moulded, and fashioned, 
and hammered into a condition in which he can receive the 
truth. 

This knowledge cannot be proved by mere verbal argu 
ment. It is not in word, but in power. It does not 
spring from any more fundamental principle. It is the 
fountain from which all other so-called principles flow. It 
is the guarantee of all other truth. There is nothing true 
without God ; and there is nothing true except the Divine 
in the infinite variety of His manifestation. 

No man can make historical investigation and historical 
proof take the place of faith ; and it is not the purpose of 
these lectures to put the one for the other. The Christian 
religion is a matter of living, not of mere intellectual know- 



Gospel of Luke. 237 



ledge ; and " the just shall live by faith ". Yet it is not 
without its value to have the truth of the concomitant cir 
cumstances demonstrated. One must remember that 
Christianity did not originate in a lie, and that we can 
and ought to demonstrate this, as well as to believe it. The 
account which it gives of its own origin is susceptible of 
being tested on the principles of historical study, and 
through the progress of discovery the truth of that account 
can be and has been in great part proved. There is, how 
ever, more to do. The evidence is there, if we look for it 



CHAPTER XIX 

LUKE'S ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST CENSUS 

WHAT does Luke say about the census? That had never 
been determined. Mutually inconsistent and thoroughly 
unjustifiable (if one may venture to use such an adjective 
regarding the opinions of great theological critics) 1 inter 
pretations of his brief statement on the subject were advo 
cated ; and the simple, natural, and obvious translation was 
not, so far as I am aware, ever considered seriously. 

The critical question is this : what is the meaning of 
" first " ? Why is this census called the first? Everything 
else depends on the answer to this question. 

On the principles laid down in " St. Paul the Traveller," 
pp. 27 f., there could not be for me any doubt. Luke says 
this was " the first," in order to distinguish it from later 
occasions on which the census was taken. He knew of 
several such occasions of census-takings, and one of these 
he actually mentions as "the census," 2 viz. the one which 
was made in A.D. 6 when Judea was organized as a pro 
vince of the Empire. Now if Luke describes a census as 
the first, we are led on inevitably to the supposition of a 
series of census-takings, and something in the way of a 
regular census-system. See Note on p. 254. 



1 Such as, for example, that irp&Tr) Kvpiviov meant the census before 
Quirinius was governor of Syria. These interpretations need not be enumer 
ated : they are all wrong and impossible in Greek usage. 

2 Acts v. 37 : this practically means " the census," the great census. 

(238) 



XIX. Luke s Account of the First Census. 239 

No one thought of attributing such a meaning to Luke's 
words. It was too absurd even for him. Not even the 
harshest critic would attribute such a foolish meaning to 
him. Accordingly, every one had set about discovering or 
inventing possible meanings for his words, as the plain and 
obvious one could not have been in his mind. 

For me, however, there was no alternative. I had de 
clared my principles, and stated how Luke's words ought 
always to be taken. This passage could only mean that 
Luke referred to some system of taking the census from 
time jgjbime, that this system was inaugurated by a decree 
of the Emperor Augustus, and that Jesus was born in the 
year of the first census-taking. 

Then I asked myself whether any person could invent the 
story of such a system. Every contemporary would know 
that there was no such census-system ; and no historian of 
any kind or class would state a falsehood whose falsity was 
obvious to every reader. A bad or unprincipled writer 
might invent a false incident, if his only public consisted 
of strangers who did not know the facts ; but no one puts 
in writing an evident falsehood, which must instantly be 
detected. 

The conclusion was evident. Luke trusted to his 
readers' familiarity with the facts and the census-system. 
He spoke of the first census, knowing how much that would 
imply to them. They knew the system as it was carried 
out in the Roman Empire. 1 

If that was so, then we might expect to find some refer 
ences to such a census-system. It is not one of the things 
that attracted or interested ancient historians ; they loved 

1 By Luke and his contemporaries the Empire was called " the world," 
i.e. the civilized world: see "Was Christ Born at Bethl. " p. 119 f. The 
Roman Empire always claimed a monopoly of civilization. 



240 XIX. Lukes Account of 

to write of battles and sieges and dynastic facts, and all the 
" great events of history " ; but the minute details of bureau 
cratic government were not a subject on which they ever 
give information. Still, there are occasional references to 
census-taking in various provinces ; and some of them have 
been stated by Gardthausen in the chapter in which he 
rightly emphasizes the importance that Augustus attached 
to the collecting and co-ordination of statistics in his system 
of administering the provinces in all respects as regards the 
manner of taking the census, and as to the requirement of 
personal presence at the original home. 

Such unconnected and unclassifiable traces of a census as 
these were of no use in the present state of our knowledge, 
and many of them may relate to a different type of census : 
but an allusion in Pliny is much more valuable. He tells 
that, during the census conducted by Claudius in A.D. 48, a 
man was found at Bologna who returned his age as 150. 
This great age roused the Emperor's attention, and on in 
vestigating the records of previous enrolments it was cor 
roborated by his statements on those occasions. 1 

Here we have a clear allusion to a census-system. This 
man had given to the Imperial officials a statement of his 
age from time to time. The records were preserved, and 
the officials knew at once where to turn in order to test his 
accuracy. This implies a regular system, in which statistics 
about population were collected and preserved, evidently 
to form a basis for good administration of State in 
terests. Such a system involves, obviously, that enrolments 
must have been taken at regular intervals; and this one 
passage of Pliny taken in conjunction with Luke's term 

1 Pliny, Nat. Hist.," vn. 48 (159) ; other notices of the operations of Claud 
ius in the census when he was censor, A.D. 48, occur in Tacitus, "Annals," 
xi. 25, 31 ; Suetonius, " Claud." 16. 



the First Census. 241 

" first census," reveals the outlines of the system, while the 
details remain obscure. 

The interval between the enrolments could not be re 
covered from the scattered references to a census. One 
in A.D. 35 has been already mentioned in the previous 
chapter. The one mentioned by Pliny occurred in 48 
apparently. 1 Tacitus mentions a census held in the pro 
vinces of Gaul at the end of the events of A.D. 61. 
Vespasian and Titus were censors in 73-74. We now see 
that these correspond in a loose way to the census periods 
of A.D. 34, 48, 62 and 76 j but the correspondence is in 
exact. 

Even taking in, as connected in some possible fashion, 
the great year of census and reviewing of resources in 8 B.C., 
one could not possibly recover any outline or dim shadow 
of a system from the facts. Yet that some sort of system 
existed was distinctly implied by two Christian writers, 
who, however, were set aside as absolutely valueless by 
critics, just because they were Christian. 

Now we grant at once that if a writer merely borrows 
from Luke what he tells us about the first census, he does 
not add in any way to the strength of Luke's statement, 
regarded as historical evidence ; but if a later writer says 
something that is not in Luke, and evidently had access to 
some other authority, then there is added the weight of 
that other authority, whatever it be. 

Clement of Alexandria, in the latter part of the second 
century, mentions that Christ was born " in the 28th year, 
when first they ordered enrolments to be made ". 2 This is 

1 Tacitus, loc. cit., speaks of Claudius as holding a census review at Ostia 
personally in 48 ; but the general operations probably belong to A.D. 49. 

2 Strom., I. 21, 147, frre irpuroj/ ^Ke\evffav airoypatyas yweffQai ; " Was 
Christ Born at Bethl." p. 128. The mention of year 28 leads on to the 

16 



XIX. Lukes Account of 



not simply taken, or mistaken, from Luke. Clement thought 
of a series or system of enrolments : he was personally 
familiar with it, and speaks of it as a matter of Roman life. 
As we now know, this must have been in Clement's mind, 
because such was the situation in which he lived ; and on 
a fair estimate of his words no reasonable scholar can doubt 
that this is the meaning of his words. 

He was familiar with the census-system as it was performed 
periodically around him throughout his life in Egypt ; he 
had filled up his own census paper, and had seen his 
parents and friends do the same ; and he believed that the 
same periodic system of census was practised in Palestine, 
and had begun, like the Egyptian census, under Augustus 
and by order of Augustus just as Luke says ; but he is not 
simply borrowing his statement from Luke. He is con 
firming Luke from his own knowledge. 

That is all reasonable, natural, and simple, 1 but it was 
regarded as too absurd even for Clement ; and so it was 
not even taken into consideration ; but now we know that 
this system of periodic enrolment did exist, and that 
Clement had seen it in operation throughout his life, and 
recognized that Luke was speaking of the first census of this 
system in his Gospel II. 1-3. 

One thing more we can infer from Clement. He had no 

question how and why it was that the Christian era came to be wrongly 
calculated, and thus the Birth of Christ was placed in what we know to be 
the fourth year after the death of Herod. This error, originating in the 
second century, has caused much trouble. It is confusing to say that 
Herod died 4 B.C., and yet Jesus was born in the days of Herod the king. 
The "Christian Era" is a mere convention among chronologists, and is 
wrongly placed; but that is apart from the subject of this investigation. 

1 As I read the quaint arguments of the critics on subjects like this, the ex 
pression which I have often used about the Turks rises in my mind, " any 
thing may happen in Turkey except what is reasonable and natural and 
possible ". 



the First Census. 243 



thought that the census was peculiar to Egypt : he implies 
that it would take place in Palestine after the same fashion 
as in Egypt. On this he could hardly be mistaken : it was 
a thing that must have been well known. 1 

The records of these successive enrolments were pre 
served and could be consulted, as we have learned from 
Pliny. If such vast records could be consulted many years 
later, as he says, then they must have been classified for 
consultation. In fact, no rational ruler would plan a sys 
tem of periodic enrolments, unless the statistics were to 
be classified and tabulated. Without that a census has no 
value. 

Tertullian evidently consulted the records, and he made a 
remarkable discovery. 2 He says that Jesus was born when 
the census was made in Syria by Sentius Saturninus. We 
have the excellent evidence of Josephus that Sentius gov 
erned Syria 8-6 B.C. 

Formerly Tertullian's statement was set aside as absurd 
and valueless, because no one put the birth of Jesus so 
early as that ; but, as we shall see, the first enrolment in the 
Augustan system coincides with the government of Sentius, 
and forthwith Tertullian's statement acquires unsuspected 
weight. He corroborates Luke as regards the time of the 
census during Herod's life, but not as regards the name of 
the Roman official. He must, therefore, derive from a 
different source of information independent of Luke, because 
on one essential point he diverges from him ; and, at the very 

least, his statement proves that there existed different written 

. 

1 Justin Martyr refers to the same census ; but his words might quite well 
be founded on Luke alone, and do not necessarily imply any other authority 
or any knowledge of his own, but only his belief that records of census did 
exist and might be consulted. 

2 "Adv. Marc." iv. 19. 



244 XIX. Lukes Account of 



sources of information, which is an important fact for the 
historian. 

If Tertullian had only the authority of Luke to rest on, 
it is inconceivable that he could have named Sentius as 
the officer that made the census, for he regarded Luke as a 
perfect authority. He therefore had access to another good 
authority. 

Now it is evident that if this census had been a mere 
fiction invented by Luke, there could not be other sources 
of knowledge about it. There must lie behind these two 
statements, partly harmonious, partly diverse, some historical 
reality and some independent tradition. A historical pro 
cess that is mentioned by only one witness might be a 
fabrication ; but a process that is attested by two totally 
independent authorities cannot be set down by sane criticism 
as a pure invention. 

We must therefore accept what Tertullian says as giving 
a fixed point in this investigation. He had access to 
records, and as we shall see they were trustworthy records, 
showing that the first Enrolment or Census took place 
in 8 B.C., and that Saturninus directed the operation. 
It is not necessary to understand that he got both facts 
from the same source. Probably he knew from one 
authority 1 the nature and times of the periodic Enrolments ; 
and he consulted another source for the official's name. 
Finally, he depended on Luke's authority for the fact that 
Jesus was born at this first census. 

Simply from the severe but intelligent study of the two 
most definite ancient authorities, any truly rational criticism 
must infer that the statement of Luke II. 1-3 is not an in- 

1 This authority would naturally be the actual recurring system, as 
Tertullian knew it in his own experience. Clement of Alexandria knew it 
as a familiar fact in ordinary life. 



the First Census. 245 

vention of his own, concocted stupidly from half-knowledge 
and from misuse of the fact that Quirinius was connected 
with another provincial census in A.D. 6-7. Luke must have 
had information from some source or other about events of 
that period, and this information was trustworthy and of 
inestimable value, for it gives a picture of the beginning of 
that most remarkable institution, the periodical census of 
the East. 

Why does Tertullian say that Sentius took the census 
when Jesus was born, while Tertullian says that Jesus was 
born while Quirinius was governing Syria, and Josephus 
again declares that Sentius was governor of Syria ? It has 
been thought that Tertullian contradicts Luke, but that 
is not so. They make different statements. Luke gives a 
date after the usual ancient fashion (followed by him on a 
great scale in III. I, 2) : Tertullian makes an assertion about 
the official who took the census. On the officials in Syria 
at the time see chap. XXI. 

Probably the counting of Roman citizens was performed 
in a different way from the counting of the subject popu 
lation for taxation purposes. Augustus records the number 
of Roman citizens whom he counted at the census held in 
28 B.C., 8 B.C., and A.D. 14.! The first is older than the 
institution of periodic enrolments ; the second agrees ; but 
the third is remote from agreement. Apparently, during 
Augustus's weak health in old age, the proper occasion, A.D. 
6, was passed, and his colleague and successor Tiberius 
counted the citizens for him in the year of his death. 
Later the two operations presumably were carried out 
regularly at the due periods, each in its own fashion. 

As to this system which Luke seemed to imply, I did 

1 He does not allude to any enrolment of tax-paying subjects ; but he 
writes as a Roman for Romans. (See also p. 294, note i.) 



246 XIX. Lukes Account of 

not think, when starting on the investigation, that the 
design of Augustus was likely to have been successfully 
carried into effect and to have become permanent in the 
Empire. As we now know it was successful, and lasted 
for 250 years or more, before it stopped in the disorganized 
and weakening Empire; but at that time, in 1895, with 
only Luke's brief statement to rest on, I was quite pre 
pared to find that a measure contemplated and ordered by 
Augustus proved unsuccessful ; and even yet we have far 
more evidence about it in the Eastern provinces, 1 which had 
an old and settled organization, than in the west. The 
machinery needed for a great census-system is large ; the 
operations are complicated; perhaps the system (as I 
thought) might not have become universal, for the Imperial 
civil and military service was certainly carried out by what 
seems to us a very small number of persons ; but it cer 
tainly could be traced in the East. 

Moreover, it was by no means certain then that later 
Emperors appreciated so thoroughly as Augustus did the 
importance of basing administration on the collection and 
grouping of facts. We can now say that the system and 
principles established by Augustus were maintained and 
developed by later Emperors on the lines that he sketched 
out. 

In seeking for evidence about the initiation of the 
system under Augustus, we were faced with one difficulty. 
Information is most inadequate. The inscriptions available 
were not so numerous or so important 2 as for a later period ; 

1 This is mainly due to the fact that paper lives in Egypt for thousands of 
years, but decays quickly in the damp soil of other countries. 

2 Of course there are some few notable exceptions to this statement, such 
as the " Res Gestae Divi Augusti," the recital of his own achievements by 
Augustus, written by a Roman for Romans, and influenced by that fact. 



the First Census. 247 

and the literary authorities are extraordinarily scanty. 
Horace, Virgil, and even Propertius have an important 
political aspect in their works. Ovid has no value in that 
view : he saw only what concerned his pitiful self. 

Hence the latter part of the reign of Augustus, in fact 
the whole period from about 15 B.C. to the beginning of 
the reign of Tiberius in A.D. 14, is almost completely 
hidden from our knowledge. 1 No historian illumines it. 
Suetonius and Velleius hardly mention anything in it except 
some dynastic matters. There was nothing else, from their 
point of view, worthy of mention ; there reigned an almost 
unbroken peace except for some frontier wars, and the 
bureaucratic system of Augustus worked, on the whole, so 
efficiently, that there was nothing striking to record except 
the German war and the tragic defeat of Varus. Had a 
formal history of Augustus's reign been preserved by a 
writer like Tacitus, he would probably have lamented the 
want of great events, and would have mentioned little 
except dynastic gossip during that period. It did not oc 
cur to the ancient historians that it was a worthy task to 
record what we in modern times most desire an account 
of the bureaucracy, a study of the provinces, details about 
the improvements whereby Augustus made the provinces 
contented and happy, and through which he deserved 
if man could deserve to be idolized by the nations 
whom he had found in slavery and misery and had made, 
to a certain degree, free and progressive. 

1 As an illustration of its obscurity take the following. A certain Favonius 
is known, from an inscription found recently, to have held the very highest 
offices of state in the last years of the reign of Augustus ; but except from 
one single stone found in Phrygia, he seems to be utterly unknown, unless 
the conjecture be admitted a conjecture which has nothing in its favour 
that Favonius is an otherwise unrecorded cognomen, attached to the name 
of some known historical figure. 



248 XIX. Lukes Account of 

A glance into any account of the history of Augustus, 
written according to the old-fashioned type usual forty years 
ago, will show the obscurity of this period Take Smith's 
" Dictionary of Ancient Biography ". To Augustus are 
given fourteen columns and a half, of which eight or ten 
short sentences exhaust this period, and these are dynastic 
or touch on German frontier wars. One would not say that 
this is good history, or right method ; but it is the old- 
fashioned style of history, and it is the sort of knowledge 
by whose standard the New Testament has been judged too 
often in the past fifty years and at the present day. 

The extract from Luke II. 1-3 plunges us right into the 
midst of provincial administration with its minute details, 
the " enrolment " of the provinces, as it was seen in one 
of them, the first enrolment of a series l implying that 
there followed systematic enrolments at intervals, the 
action of a member of the bureaucracy, the implication 
that many other members of the bureaucracy must have 
co-operated in such a vast administrative work, which 
was begun by an order of the governor calling back every 
individual to his own city. 

Luke gives a very striking picture of a splendid piece of 
governmental work. He tells of a bold law for the whole 
Empire, instituting a series of enrolments, a regular census - 
system. Taking into account what machinery is required 
to hold a census, to tabulate and use its results, to make 
this a universal system for the Empire, and to repeat the 
Imperial census at intervals, the historian is struck with 
admiration of the Augustan idea. The statesman who 
thought of making such a system universal knew that wise 

l l have been criticized for maintaining that Luke distinguished in 
meaning trpwros from vp6repos ; but now discovery has proved conclusively 
that in this passage at least " first" must mean " the first of many "; and 
I have nothing to retract. 



the First Census. 249 

government depended on the collection, classification, and 
registration of details ; and he must have expected that his 
bureaucracy would prove equal to the work. If he thought 
of a system, he must have determined his system by regular 
recurrence at regular intervals : no other way need or can 
be thought of. If Augustus could plan out such schemes 
as this, it is no wonder that his great Imperial foundation 
lasted so long, and that his bureaucratic system of adminis 
tration fixed the general type for all modern methods of 
government. Anyone who has a true feeling for history 
must be thankful to the great historian who has sketched 
for us in such brief and masterly fashion by a few pregnant 
words such a skilful picture. He has lit up the obscurity 
of this dark period, and given us a specimen of Imperial 
administrative method. The historians of the century that 
follows the age of Augustus were so occupied with the 
" great events of history" that they would not mention 
such humble matters as enrolment and its methods; and 
Luke was left to tell the tale alone. Such very slight 
corroboration as has been recorded by Tacitus inter 
venes incidentally, and is alluded to in such slight and 
contemptuous fashion that it gives only the minimum of 
information, and was not even recognized as corroborative 
until the whole census-system was cleared up in the gradual 
progress of research. 

Most recent writers on the New Testament, however, 
had stood placidly and contentedly apart from the mod 
ern developments of Roman Imperial history, and had 
evolved the theory that Luke had invented this incident 
"all out of his own head " (in the children's phrase), 1 to ex- 

1 His starting-point (as it is supposed) lay in a blunder about Quirinius , 
who did actually take another census in Judea (the second of the series). 
According to this fashionable theory, Luke misplaced the census of A.D. 6 
to a date in the reign of Herod who died 4 B.C. 



250 XIX. Lukes Account of 

plain how Jesus could be born in Bethlehem of parents who 
lived in Nazareth. 

Assume for the moment that this is so. What genius 
for historical fiction is implied in the invention ! Luke had 
no foundation in fact to go upon ; his starting-point was 
only his blunder about the date of a totally different kind 
of enrolment made by Quirinius in Palestine in A.D. 6, 1 
when that governor conducted the survey and valuation of 
the country which was now for the first time being con 
stituted as a province of the Empire. All the rest of his 
story is, according to the fashionable theory, pure fiction. 

How comes it that Luke could imagine all that is implied 
in his picture? How could he invent a vast process which 
hangs together so well in itself, and which puts before us a 
quite wonderful piece of bureaucratic administration, ex 
tremely complicated, requiring the collaboration of a great 
many officials, and yet all purely fictitious? Still more 
wonderful is this when we find from recent discovery that 
every detail in Luke's picture can be paralleled from ad 
ministrative practice in the Empire at a later period. The 
historian was not merely a genius, but also a prophet. He 
foresaw what the subsequent Emperors were going to do ; 
and he imagines Augustus doing it all before the death of 

1 It must be remembered that, if Quirinius in A.D. 6 was not making a 
periodic census, his enrolment would not be a model from which Luke 
could draw the picture given in n. 1-3. On our view there were combined 
in the enrolment of that year the valuation and inquisition which were re 
quired for Roman administrative purposes in a new province, along with the 
counting by household (air oy petty)] /car' olniav) of the periodic census. It was 
perhaps the former part that did most to provoke the great disturbances 
among the Jews as recorded by Josephus. The counting by households 
necessitated an inquiry into home life that was offensive to the Asiatic mind 
and society ; but the other inquisition was probably even more unpopular and 
detested, as implying the beginning of complete domination by the great 
alien Empire. 



the First Census. 251 

Herod in 4 B.C. The scholar who now says that Luke in 
vented the picture which is drawn in II. 1-3 has to face these 
alternatives : either he must glorify Luke as a genius in 
fiction and a prophet in history, or he must confess that his 
own theory is wrong. 

Let us, however, investigate more strictly what is implied 
in the theory of false invention. The whole procedure, 
according to the writers of this class, was a fiction : Jesus 
was born in Nazareth (only a very few go so far as to deny 
that he was ever born or had any historical existence) ; and 
after a legend connecting Him with Bethlehem had grown 
up, Luke set about inventing historical circumstances and 
conditions to explain and give plausibility and historical 
background to the legend. But observe how much this 
theory implies : it may be doubted whether those who hold 
it have ever put clearly to themselves or their readers all 
that they really are contending for. They are really main 
taining : 

1. That Luke, without possessing any true historical in 
stinct (such as was the heritage of the Greeks, making them 
seek after and value for its own sake historical truth), yet 
had a certain untrained craving for a historical setting to his 
story ; that he cast about in the past, to search for some 
thing suitable as a historical background ; and that finding 
a census recorded as occurring in A.D. 6-7, he took this arid 
transferred it to a different time. It is not made quite clear 
whether the argument is that Luke committed this blunder 
from pure chronological inability and historical ignorance, 
fancying that it afforded some explanation, or that he de 
liberately and knowingly transferred the census to a wrong 
time ; the commoner view seems to be that he acted through 
ignorance and incapacity. 

2. That Luke invented without any authority the state- 



252 XIX. Lukes Account of 

ment that Augustus ordered a census or enrolment of the 
whole Empire to be made ; there could (as these writers 
assume) be no record of such an impossible act, but Luke 
supposed that the order of Augustus * regarding the Pales 
tinian census of A.D. 6 (which he misplaced) was univers 
ally applicable to the Roman world. The argument in this 
case is that Luke, without any need or any authority, in 
vented the statement. That census in A.D. 6 was, of 
course, taken on the instructions issued by Augustus to the 
Governor of Syria ; but to invent unnecessarily a general 
edict of Augustus, and thus transform a local process at the 
organization of a new Province into an Imperial regulation 
for the Empire, shows not merely gross ignorance about 
facts and methods of government, but also deliberate 
forgery of historical testimony performed for the purpose 
of imparting a false air of historicity to a legend. Careless 
ness in a historian is bad, but such calculated falsehood is 
much worse. 

3. The fashionable theory implies further that Luke in 
vented, not merely one world-wide Augustan census under 
Herod, but also the idea of a series of enrolments, of which 
this was the first. Now, why should he do this? His 
other inventions were hid in the far-away times of King 
Herod and might deceive the unwary ; but a series of en 
rolments was a thing that could be tested by every reader 
from his own experience. 

One feels that this part of the accusation overtaxes one's 
power of belief. No rational writer could or would go to 

1 The instructions (mandata) given by the Emperor to his legatus, whom 
he sent to Syria in A.D. 6, would, of course, contain a provision for making 
the usual valuation, etc., required in constituting the new province. No 
special edict was needed for this action in a single new province. Out of 
this Luke, according to the fashionable theory, has evolved an edict issued to 
the whole Empire. 



the First Census. 253 



such an extreme of needless and useless invention. If this 
is all false it adds nothing to the verisimilitude of the narra 
tive ; and it must have forthwith betrayed its falseness to 
every reader at the time when Luke's Gospel was written. 
We cannot admit such an incredible accusation. The theory 
destroys itself. 

4. The fashionable theory, further, maintained that the 
idea of every person going to his own home to be enrolled 
was a pure fiction, and could not possibly have been true : 
it was a mere device to explain how Jesus could be born 
in Bethlehem of parents who lived in Nazareth : it was a 
false explanation \ of an invented occurrence: Jesus, if born 
at all, was born in the home of his parents. From modern 
discovery, however, it now appears that the order to return 
to the original home, though in a sense non-Roman in spirit, 
was the regular feature of the census in the Eastern pro 
vinces, as will be shown in the sequel. 

From a fair, unprejudiced and rational consideration of 
the evidence of Luke, Pliny, Tacitus, Clement and Ter- 
tullian, we conclude that the statements of Luke are all 
probable in themselves, and that the theory either of inven 
tion or of stupid error on his part is unreasonable and un 
justifiable. Any theory of that form only casts discredit on 
the historical acumen of those who proposed or accepted it 
as probable ; and yet it was not merely regarded as pro 
bable, but was generally accepted as demonstrated and 
certain truth. Even Mommsen's plea that most of what 
Luke says was probably correct was ignored and remained 
ineffective. 

This theory is an astonishing example of modern 
European capacity for making false judgments. From 

1 Strauss and others were, at least, stating their opinion in books of in 
vestigation, good or bad ; but Schmiedel was stating in the " Encyclopaedia 



254 XIX. Lukes Account of the First Census. 

Strauss to Schmiedel, 1 what a series of distinguished and 
famous scholars have blindly assumed that their inability to 
estimate historical evidence correctly was the final and sure 
criterion of truth. This we can now say freely, because the 
whole matter, so far as the census is concerned, has passed 
out of the sphere of speculation into the region of definite 
historical truth. We know that Luke was right in the ex 
ternal facts, because the records have disclosed the whole 
system of the census ; but as to the inner facts, the birth 
and the divine nature of Jesus, there can (as said above) be 
no historical reasoning, for those are a matter of faith, of 
intuition, and of the individual human being's experience 
and inner life. 1 

Note (p. 238). In "St. Paul the Traveller," p. 27 f., dis 
cussing Luke's use of TT/OWTO?, I wrongly admitted that in 
Stephen's speech, Acts VII. 12, the speaker used TT/JWTOZ/ 
where irporepov would be right. So it had been asserted, 
and I allowed it ; but this is not so. Three visits were 
made by the sons of Jacob (as both Genesis and Stephen 
say) : the first is expressed by irpwrov, the second by eV T&> 
Sevrepw, and the third by a changed form. 

Biblica " for general use views which should have been certain and funda 
mental; and he states his own blunders more dogmatically than almost any 
other scholar. It is no wonder that this audacious self-confidence misled the 
less educated public. 

1 See the last three paragraphs of Ch. xvm. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE AUGUSTAN CENSUS-SYSTEM 

WHEN I had reached the conclusion that the balance of 
probability, judging on mere historical principles, was de 
cisively in favour of Luke being correct in his description 
of the census, the discoveries made in Egypt offered 
themselves. Three scholars almost simultaneously an 
nounced that there existed in Egypt a census-system 
extending from A.D. 90 to 258. The incidence and nature 
of the census was proved by the enrolment papers that had 
been preserved in the dry soil. The idea occurred to me 
that this was the system which Luke mentions as put 
in action for the first time under Herod ; and the periods 
when reckoned back gave a system originating from the 
completion of the Imperial authority of Augustus on 29 
June, 23 B.C., and falling due for the first time in 9 B.C. 

In describing the census-system, I shall ignore the 
variations in regard to the beginning of the new years, 
which varied much. I speak of the periodic census years 
as 9 B.C., A.D. 6, 20, 34, 48, 62, etc. ; but it will be under 
stood that in applying these years to Egypt, or to Asia 
Minor, one who seeks to be accurate would call those years 
10-9 B.C., A.D. 5-6, A.D. 19-20, because in those countries 
the new year began not on i January, but on some day in 
the late summer or autumn. 

It will also be remembered that the actual enrolment 
was almost always made in the year following, as the 

(255) 



256 XX. The Augustan Census- System. 

intention was to count every person who had come into 
existence up to the end of the periodic year. Hence the 
actual census-taking was in 8 B.C., A.D. 7, A.D. 21, and so 
on, and most frequently in the later months of those years. 
The census papers are all carefully dated and leave no 
doubt on these points. 

It will be convenient to give a very brief summary of 
Wilcken's statement on the subject. 1 He is the most 
cautious and sure of scholars, and anything that he states 
as demonstrated fact may be accepted without the smallest 
hesitation. 

Augustus seems to have left the old Ptolemaic system of 
annual census in Egypt undisturbed, when the country was 
brought under the Empire in 30 B.C. 2 After some interval 
the fourteen-year-cycle was introduced. Actual census 
papers have been found of the periodic year 62 [add also 
34] after Christ. 3 Indirect references occur to the census 
of A.D. 20 and 48.* Grenfell and Hunt rightly argue that 
Augustus must have originated this cycle. Beyond this 
there is no certainty, and we must await the discovery of 
fresh material. 

Before the periodic year 62 the form of census was not 
quite the same as it became on that occasion and continued 
thereafter in unbroken series down to A.D. 258. 5 In parti- 



1 Mitteis and Wilcken, " Papyruskunde," I, i. p. 192 f. 
3 Wilcken, i. p. 192, arguing from Grenfell's i. 45 and 46. 

3 Wilcken, ibid. I have added the period 34 from a Strassburg Papyrus 
recently published in " Philologus," confirmed by a letter from Dr. Hunt 
answering my question about this document, which is strange in expression. 
This papyrus was published since Wilcken wrote : he knew no census paper 
earlier than 62. 

4 Wilcken, ibid, from Grenfell and Hunt, " Oxy.," n. 254 and 255. 

5 No census papers of a later date have been found but no change or 
reason for change is attested, except that about this time the whole ad- 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 257 

cular the term " household enrolment " 1 is not known until 
A.D. 62. That earlier period is therefore a time of transi 
tion. 

At this point I would add to Wilcken that the Augustan 
system, as found in Egypt, could not, even on the Egyptian 
evidence, be taken as applying to Egypt only. The system 
is calculated, not on the Egyptian reckoning of the reign 
of Augustus, but on the Imperial reckoning. Augustus 
counted his reign in the Empire generally by the tribunician 
authority conferred on him, 29 June, 23 B.C., 2 whereas in 
Egypt he exercised his sovereignty on a different footing, 3 
starting from 29 August, 30 B.C. ; and any device intended 
for Egypt alone would be arranged accordingly. 

Now there are practically only two alternatives : a device 
like this, found in Egypt, must be either restricted to 
Egypt or universal for the Empire. 4 We have found that 
it is not confined to Egypt, therefore it is Imperial, and 
the decree that ordered it must, as Luke says, have gone 
forth to " the whole world ". 

This is a fair and probable inference from the Egyptian 
evidence, taken by itself. When we further consider the 
weight of authority for a wider census, as stated in Chap. 
XIX., there can remain no reasonable doubt. It is, how 
ever, not admitted by Wilcken, for he makes no suggestion 

ministration of the Empire everywhere was slackening and growing weaker 
and its strength was diminishing. The Christian Empire, as Mommsen says, 
reinvigorated the State as a whole. Wilcken, i. p. 193. 

1 KOT' OLK.LO.V a.iroypa<j>'f). 

2 This reckoning was followed by the later Emperors ; each reigned as 
champion of the Commons, and counted the years as Trib. Potest. i., n., 
and so on. 

3 On its nature see the statement later in this chapter, and also Chap. xv. 

4 The supposition that the census should have been ordered only for a few 
Eastern provinces cannot be admitted. There is no reason to think that 
Augustus ever restricted his orders after that fashion. 

17 



XX. The Augustan Census- System. 



as to the origin of the census-periods. The inference was 
drawn in my book, 1 which Wilcken does not mention. In 
fact he attributes to Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt the dis 
covery that the census-system originates from Augustus ; 
and this he admits, only leaving a doubt whether the first 
periodic year was 9 B.C. or A.D. 6. That discovery, how 
ever, as the two English scholars mention, was stated by 
me a year before their volume appeared, 2 containing their 
first statement of their opinion on this subject. So far as 
I am concerned, the matter is of no consequence ; but as it 
relates to Luke, it has some interest. The discovery was 
made by taking Luke's account as trustworthy and search 
ing for evidence bearing on the subject. I took as a work 
ing hypothesis that there was an oecumenical decree of 
Augustus, instituting a census, and the investigation was 
directed accordingly. That is a procedure that is not 
merely scientifically permissible : it is in the present state 
of knowledge the only scientific method. This is a point 
of supreme importance. 

In every case that has been sufficiently tested 3 Luke has 
been proved to state, not merely correctly in a superficial and 
external fashion, but correctly with insight and fine historic 
sense, the facts of history and of Roman organization in 
municipal and provincial and imperial government. Such 

1 " Was Christ Born at Bethl.," Chap, vn., after having been published 
already in the " Expositor," May, 1907. 

2 " Oxyrynchus Papyri," Vol. II, 1899, p. 207 ff. 

3 The statement about the insurrection led by Theudas in Acts v. 36 has 
not been, and cannot at present be, sufficiently tested. This statement is 
uttered by Gamaliel, about A.D. 30, and his speech is reported by Luke. 
Josephus mentions a rebel Theudas, who lived and died in A.D. 44. The 
little that is mentioned about these two rebels does not agree ; and there is 
no reason to doubt that an older rebel named Theudas may have been known 
to Gamaliel, but not mentioned by Josephus, who certainly did not mention 
every insurrection that was made in Judea against Rome. 



XX. The Augustan Census -System, 259 

progress as the present writer has been enabled to make in 
discovery is largely due to the early appreciation of the fact 
that Luke is a safe guide. From this follows the principle 
that the path of the explorer lies in the careful study of 
Luke's narrative, wherever it bears in any way on the sub 
ject of investigation ; and it will always be found best to 
begin by fixing clearly before our eyes in its proper perspec 
tive a picture according to Luke. 

We now resume the account given by Wilcken. The 
household enrolment in Egypt was subsidiary to taxation 
purposes, for the poll-tax was levied on all who had reached 
the age of fourteen, which determined the census-period. 
The intention of the census was to reckon completely the 
population according to their home (ISia), and hence the 
order was issued by the governor of Egypt that every man 
must return to his own home (iBia) for the census, exactly 
as Luke relates in respect of Judea. 1 Generally, and 
perhaps always, the edict ordering the return to the home 
for the census was different from and later than the edict 
stating the imminence of the census and the arrangements 
for it. 2 

The order is stated in the edict of the Prefect Vibius 
Maximus in A.D. 104, "that all who for any reason what 
ever are away from their own Nomos should return to 
their home to enrol themselves ". By this edict, however, 
certain exceptions are permitted at Alexandria, in the 
cases of persons who are needed by the city. The only 
city in Egypt was Alexandria, and its citizens had the right 
of self-government by their own magistrates. The governor 
of the land of Egypt makes this exception from respect to 
the city. The rest of Egypt was imperial property, one vast 

1 Wilcken, i. p. 193. 

p. 193 f., ii. pp. iv., 235 f., no. 202. 



260 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

estate on which the cultivators occupied much the same 
relation towards the Emperor as is described above in Chap. 
XV. The Emperor stood in the place of the old Pharaohs 
and of the Ptolemaic kings ; and the people were his sub 
jects and almost his slaves. 

Egypt, therefore, was not in the strict sense a province of 
the Empire. It was the property of the Emperor himself ; 
and the account given of the provinces and the provincials 
must not be applied to this unique country. No member 
of the Senate was permitted to land in Egypt without a 
special pass from the Emperor. 

There can be no doubt as to the purpose of this remark 
able order, which apparently was repeated regularly at 
every census. It was intended to bring the cultivators back 
to their own home, to keep them on the land, and to pre 
vent them going off to other avocations and leaving the land 
without sufficient hands to cultivate it. The harvest of 
Egypt was of immense importance for the economy of the 
Empire, and no risk must be incurred that the land might 
pass even in a small degree out of cultivation. The order 
to return to the home was an economic measure intended 
to ensure that the supply of food should be maintained for 
the Empire by keeping a sufficient number of cultivators on 
the land. It was also a device for keeping up the value 
of the vast Imperial estates all over the East. Their value 
to the Emperor as owner depended on the high state of 
cultivation and productiveness in which they were main 
tained. 

Now in the ages when freedom was valuable and valued, 
there was some temptation for the cultivators to leave the 
estates and try to merge themselves in the free population 
of the self-governing cities. Even if they could not easily 
become burgesses of a city where they settled, they could 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 261 



be ranked as resident strangers, of whom there were many 
in every city. 

Later, and markedly during the growing degeneration of 
administration and security in the third century, the social 
condition of the whole Empire deteriorated, freedom 
ceased to have much charm, and the free citizens began to 
drift towards the Imperial estates. The condition of the 
cultivators was bad, but they could appeal to their Lord 
and Master, and it was to his interest not to let their state 
become too miserable lest their value should deteriorate. 
This we saw in Chap. XV. The cultivators had in some 
small degree a protector during that later period of decay, 
but the free citizens had none. 

In the first and second centuries, however, all over the 
East, it seemed important to the Imperial policy to counter 
act the tendency of the cultivators on the estate to move 
towards the cities. 

Now Rostowzew has rightly inferred from the nature of 
the edicts ordering return to the home for the census, that 
there was no law compelling the cultivators even in Egypt 
to remain on the land. The change of domicile was still 
legal ; and the cultivators possessed the rights of freemen. 
Yet the Imperial government aimed at preventing the 
cultivators from leaving the land in too great numbers ; 
and they took advantage of the census to compel return to 
the home once in fourteen years. This regulation clipped 
the wings of freedom, and served the purpose of the govern 
ment for the time. 

Very few scholars would have been disposed to accept as 
a regular Roman principle this rule that the census must be 
taken of each individual at his original and proper home 
(ISia). The present writer did not do so, and on this 
point his book on the subject was wrong. The error was 



262 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

not due to doubt about the accuracy of Luke, but simply 
to ignorance of the Roman custom, which had not become 
known. Wherever the present writer followed Luke's 
authority absolutely and with knowledge he was right down 
to the last detail. Where want of knowledge obscured the 
way, he was wrong. He advanced the hypothesis that this 
regulation was special to Judea, and was due to the desire 
of Herod to conduct the census in a way that would be less 
offensive to the Hebrew feeling than the ordinary Roman 
custom. 

We now know that the regulation mentioned by Luke 
was the customary Roman method of making the census. 
This is a noteworthy fact, and opens up a great vista of 
history. 1 

When the writer had recourse to a supposed concession 
by Herod to Hebrew feeling, he was groping in the proper 
direction. It is quite true that the principle of the return 
to the home is an example of the influence of native Oriental 
custom on the practical administration of Roman rule in the 
East; but this was no mere exception due to Hebrew 
prejudice. It was a far bigger and more wide-reaching 
principle than that. 

In Greece and the East the Roman rule was applied to 
people with a very ancient civilization, with national 
customs and elaborate legal forms fixed by the usage of 
countless generations ; and, above all, the Romans were 
here in contact with peoples so proud as the Greeks and so 
antagonistic in spirit as the Semites and other Orientals. 
Government could not safely be carried on in such countries 
without very careful adaptation to the character of the 
people. The Romans never intentionally destroyed an 

1 It is expressly mentioned in Palestine, Thrace and Egypt, but that implies 
the whole East, at least. 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 263 

existing civilization within the Empire (perhaps with the 
solitary exception of the Carthaginian) : they used it, and 
built upon and around it 

Even in the barbarian West there can be no doubt that, 
while Rome imposed her own law and customs upon these 
provinces, she was not wholly unmindful of native custom 
and character. In the Three Gauls she adapted her rule 
to the tribal system. In southern Britain and in Nar- 
bonensian Gaul the tribal system was destroyed. This 
difference of treatment, due to difference in native character 
and circumstances, was probably accompanied by differ 
ence in the degree to which pure Roman law was adminis 
tered in these neighbouring yet diverse countries. 

Thus, for example, if I may diverge for the moment to a 
side illustration, it is quite false method to assume (as many 
recent writers in Germany and England have done) that St. 
Paul and his correspondents were familiar with the pure 
Roman law. The Apostle could never have seen this ad 
ministered, either in Tarsus or in Palestine : Tarsus and 
Antioch were free cities, in which the Roman law was 
not applied : Palestine was governed according to Jewish 
law. Even in ordinary provincial cities, like Iconium or 
Derbe or Perga, the Roman law was (as Mitteis has shown) 
strongly affected by the hereditary law and custom of the 
Greek East. Paul in his letters was not writing to people 
who knew the pure Roman law ; and in his legal figures he 
has in mind the law that was familiar to his correspondents. 
In Pisidian Antioch the colonists were Roman citizens, and 
here Paul, perhaps for the first time, experienced the strictly 
Roman law in a city of the East. Paul's legal references are 
usually to facts and ideas, such as adoption and will-making, 
that were common to the Graeco-Asiatic and the Roman 
custom ; but he has a few which are not expressed in har- 



264 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

mony with pure Roman law ; * and it is as a whole unjustifi 
able to illustrate his legal allusions by quoting from the pure 
Roman law of the Republican period. Illustrations from 
Imperial rescripts, even of later time, are much more pertin 
ent, because, although issued later, the rescripts quoted 
usually were to a great extent a systematizing and authoriz 
ing of current administrative custom in the East. 

In the East, therefore, we have always to think more 
about Graeco- Asiatic law as developed by Imperial policy 
than about the strict Roman law. It was the former that 
the readers and hearers of Paul or of Luke knew ; and to it 
Paul went for his illustrations and his metaphors. 

If that was the case with the general rules of law, much 
more must it have been true that Roman practical adminis 
trative devices were suited to the Eastern peoples, and were 
as a rule only the modifications of pre-Roman local custom. 
The Roman census-system was simply an adaptation of 
earlier Ptolemaic custom in Egypt ; and it was not justi 
fiable to expect (as we did) that it should be purely Western 
in character and method. 

No evidence has survived about the method of the census 
under Augustus ; but later, as we have seen, the Prefect of 
Egypt issued an edict, evidently as a regular custom at the 
approach of the census, ordering every one to return to his 
own home in anticipation of the enrolment. 2 Similarly the 
magistrates of Mesembria in Thrace summoned the whole 
population to come into the town to be enrolled according 
to the law of the city and according to the custom. 3 

1 Examples are given in " Historical Commentary on Galatians," pp. 
349-74 and 385-91. 

2 " Papyri Brit. Museum," III, no. 904 ; also Milligan, " Selections," no. 
28, p. 72 f. The edict is of A.D. 104. See p. 259. 

3 Cagnat, " Inscr. Graec. ad res R. pertinentes," i. 769, from Dumont and 
Homolle, p. 460, no. me. Quoted by Rostowzew, " Stud. z. Gesch. d. rom. 
Kolonats," p. 305. 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 265 

These are examples, the only three attested by the scanty 
evidence, of what must have been a general custom in the 
East. The administrative order was issued by the proper 
authority, viz. in a free European city by the elected magis 
trates, in subject Egypt by the Prefect, who was viceroy 
and lord over a population of servants ; but the authority 
for this method comes from the Emperor Augustus, or his 
successor for the time being. 

Such was the custom of the census at a later period after 
Luke was dead. It is clear that, if he was inventing this 
general order, he like a prophet described exactly what 
was going to be the method at a later time. Such an idea is 
absurd ! It is beyond doubt or dispute that he was describ 
ing the method of the periodic census, as he knew it in 
regular practice. 

In the Ptolemaic period similar papers, couched in re 
markably similar terms, used to be issued for the census in 
Egypt. There can be no doubt that Augustus only modified 
the old census of the country and extended it generally 
over the East. Probably the return to the home was a de 
vice older than Augustus. 

Joseph and Mary obeyed the administrative order, and 
went to their own proper home at Bethlehem : in Nazareth 
they were only resident aliens and could not be counted there. 

Accordingly Rostowzew 1 infers without any hesitation 
from Luke that " already in the beginning of the Imperial 
period all people, whether inhabitants of cities or of villages, 
were summoned to return to their proper domicile (I8ia) for 
the census exactly as was customary in Egypt ". He con 
siders Luke's words a sufficient proof that this was the 
general Augustan rule. 

1 " Studien z. Gesch. d. rom. Kolonats," p. 305. 



266 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

This regulation about holding the census only at the 
original home is diametrically opposed to our modern ideas 
of a census. It is destructive of many of the purposes for 
which a census is valued in modern administration. It tends 
to prevent free settlement, to impede trade, and to put 
fetters on intercourse through the country. Why should 
Rome impose such a condition in the East? For the 
strengthening of the Empire it was urgently required that 
national distinctions should be obliterated in the wider 
patriotism of the universal citizenship ; and many of Augus 
tus's measures show that he was aiming at a progressive 
unification of the whole Roman world through the weaken 
ing of the merely national or tribal unions and the encour 
agement of oecumenical patriotism and sense of common 
and universal brotherhood. Yet here the Augustan census 
is, according to Luke, accompanied by a thoroughly retro 
gressive regulation which seems to mean that every one 
ought to stay at home, that no one can acquire the right to 
be away from home for more than a few years, and that all 
must be counted at their own proper home at every census, 
as if they were bound to that home and could only be 
temporary sojourners everywhere else. 

Such a regulation was opposed to the general tendency 
and to the best side of the Augustan system ; and we had 
some apparent ground to rest on, when we pronounced the 
regulation to be non-Roman. But we wrongly assumed 
that the Augustan system was perfected, and that all parts 
of it were carried out on the same general principles. On 
the contrary, the Imperial system was incomplete, wavering, 
often partaking of the nature of compromise ; and so far from 
rejecting as non-Roman the bond of attachment to the original 
domicile, both Augustus and his successors seem to have used 
this principle wherever it seemed convenient for them. 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 267 

Mr. Zulueta, in a remarkable essay published in Vino- 
gradoffs " Oxford Studies," 1909, p. 42,* states well the 
purpose and nature of this principle (die Lehre von der ISia, 
as it is called in German) ; and I quote his words, which 
seem almost like a commentary on Luke, though it may be 
taken as certain that the learned writer of this Essay on the 
later Roman law had in his mind no thought of explaining 
or defending St. Luke. 

He points out that, while the Imperial policy rarely, and 
only in critical times, made any use of the old Oriental 
principle of the corvte, according to which the population 
might be called upon to perform forced labour for the public 
service, yet " The government held in reserve a more far- 
reaching principle, which was asserted whenever political or 
economic troubles threatened to bring the industry of the 
country to a standstill. This was the principle that every 
man had a [personal attachment to the home and soil of his 
birth] (ISta), a place of origin in which he had his proper 
sphere of activity and to which he could be held in 
the public interest. [There is] a remarkable series of texts 
testifying to the operation of the rule of ISia from the 
Ptolemaic period onwards. 2 We may quote as typical the 
edict of the prefect of A.D. 154 (BGU 372), which con 
cludes with the following threat " : "if any person ... is 
found straying on alien land, he shall be arrested and brought 
before me as no longer merely suspect but actually a con 
fessed malefactor"; and "the general duty is " to devote 

1 Zulueta, " De Patrociniis Vicorum ". Each of the two Essays in the 
volume has its separate paging. 

2 He quotes in illustration: OGIS go, 19 f. ; P. Taur. viu. 13 f., ig f.; P. 
Tebt. i. 5, 7 (118 B.C.). P. Oxy. n. 251-3 ; OGIS 66g, 34; P. Lond. n. 260, 
120 (all cent, i.) ; BGU 372 (A.D. 154), 15 ; i. 475, go2, go3 ; P. Frohner (W. 
in " Festchrift Hirschfeld ") ; P. Gen. ig ; P. Tebt. n. 327, 43g(all cent, n.) ; 
BGU isg; P. Gen. 16. 



268 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

oneself to agriculture on one's proper soil. Precisely similar 
terms are found in the royal ordinance of 1 1 8 B.C. In A.D. 
41 5 a new idea was added, viz. the protection of the interest 
of a dominus in his tenants or labourers by means of local 
servitude. 

In the census there was a special need, and the taking of 
the census had to encounter many difficulties. To make a 
census accurate enough to serve as a basis of administra 
tion is no easy matter ; a successful census is a triumph of 
skilful government and good method. It was an accepted 
Roman principle to permit, and even to encourage, free inter 
course through the Empire, and thus to foster a feeling of 
Imperial unity. Yet the existence of a floating population 
and of many travellers made the census difficult. How 
and where should the migratory population be counted ? 
These immigrants and travellers could not be numbered as 
they stood at any single moment, which is the modern way. 
The staff of administration was totally inadequate in Roman 
time for such a vast undertaking : even the most elementary 
acquaintance with Roman Imperial facts teaches any student 
that government was carried on with an ,extremely small 
staff, and as a matter of fact we know well that the staff was 
hardly capable of coping with the ordinary duties of govern 
ment : for example, the maintenance of public order and 
security, and the suppression of brigandage on the public 
roads, were far from thorough and sacisfactory. For an 
extraordinary effort like the census the Imperial civil ser 
vice was quite ineffective ; the census (like the guarding of 
public security) had to be largely carried out as a branch of 
military duty ; and the only possibility of doing the work at 
all was to distribute it over the whole year, and to order the 
household returns to be sent in by each householder at 
some time during the year. 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 269 

To meet the difficulty the government, in Mr. Zulueta's 
words, asserted the far-reaching principle of the proper home 
or ISia, an old Oriental fact. Every man must return to his 
proper home or IBia for the census. This we see in Egypt, 
in Thrace, and in Palestine (according to Luke), as appears 
from the references quoted above. To judge from Luke it 
was not only the householder but also his family, that must 
return to the IS la, and Wilcken elicits from an Egyptian 
Prefect's decree the universal rule that all were ordered 
to return to the proper home, not merely the male house 
holder, but the family, so that the enumeration should be 
really a Household-enrolment (see p. 272). 

The principle of the ISia is based deep in human nature, 
not merely in the East, but also in the West. There is a 
tendency to distrust the stranger and the wanderer. Experi 
ence shows that only too often he has emancipated himself 
from the controlling power of his original surroundings and 
society, without substituting any other sufficient guidance 
in his life. Such is the danger. The overcoming of the 
danger produces a higher standard of thought and morality ; 
but that is not the invariable result, and least commonly so 
in stagnant and backward society. 

It is too much to expect that the Imperial government 
should have refused to descend to the employment of such a 
principle. Even in modern life, and in the most progressive 
societies, this tendency manifests itself in various ways, often 
disguised. In the great international railway-station of 
Budapest it refuses to recognize any international lan 
guage, and orders that every inscription on every door and 
office shall be in Magyar alone. It makes the English dis 
believe every German official utterance, and the German dis 
trust every English official statement, as devices of an enemy. 1 

1 This paragraph was printed in the year 1912. 



270 XX. The Augustan Census- System. 

In the unprogressive countries, such as Turkey, the ten 
dency rules supreme. The stranger is disliked as a danger : 
a partial exception is made in favour of Europeans as being 
different in nature, but they are only tolerated, not liked. 
Other strangers are probably hostile. One frequently hears 
the principle invoked. You pass on the road in Turkey two 
or three Circassians, and you know that there is no Circassian 
village within twenty hours distance. The inference is at 
once drawn that these strangers can be after no good so far 
from home. The police arrest them, if they dare. The 
traveller flees from them, if he can. The principle justifies 
itself in most cases, because the reasoning founded on it 
proves true. Only if the stranger goes direct to a guest 
house or a khan, is it admitted that he may perhaps be 
honest, although appearances are rather against him ; but 
he has a claim in universal custom to hospitality " for a day 
and a night and a morrow ". 

Education overcomes this tendency ; and through the 
growing power of education dislike and distrust of the 
stranger grows rarer and weaker, and disguises itself under 
the form of patriotism or otherwise. But in countries which, 
like the Roman Empire, are degenerating from a higher 
plane of civilization, the operation of the tendency grows 
wider and deeper as the years pass. It had been always 
strong in the Eastern provinces. Its history can be studied 
in them for centuries before Roman legions had been seen 
there. It was connected with the story of conquest and the 
domination of victorious races in the regions which they sub 
dued. The land was treated as estates, of which the con 
querors were lords, and which the older population tilled as 
subjects of the new masters. The presence of the old popula 
tion was necessary. They had the agricultural tradition, 
and without them the land would have relapsed into desert, 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 271 

as the water, which generally had to be artificially supplied, 
ceased to flow through channels that were not properly 
maintained, and as other subsidiary operations were neg 
lected. The new lords were soldiers and not agriculturists. 

There was, however, at first only a tendency to remain, 
and not a tie to bind the cultivator to the soil. Neither 
custom nor positive law had at that time transformed the 
tendency into a thoroughly binding tie. The convenience 
of government and the advantage of the landlord gradually 
strengthened it. 1 

The tie to the soil was created and strengthened by the 
needs of the case and by the custom of the country. Under 
the legal-minded Romans the tie was stereotyped, and after 
wards became a matter of formal law. The lord of the 
estate established a legal right to have the benefit of the 
work of the cultivators on his land. If the cultivators left 
the estate and went elsewhere, the landlord suffered financial 
loss. When there were abundant cultivators, the loss 
caused by the departure of some was not felt ; but when 
cultivators were few, as was in later times the case, agricul 
ture suffered, the loss was serious and attempts were made 
by law to guard the interest of the landlord in the labour 
of the people on his land. 

In A.D. 415 Imperial law recognized formally this right 
of the landowner to the work of his cultivators. 2 They 
must remain on the soil to cultivate it, lest the owner 
should lose the value of his property. That is the earliest 
and as yet hardly complete recognition in express legal en 
actment of what had long existed in embryo, viz. the 

1 On this gradual growth of the tie see Mr. Zulueta's paper, already 
quoted. Fustel de Coulanges and Mommsen were the pioneers in the 
study of this rapidly growing branch of history. 

3 Zulueta, loc. cit., p. 42 f. 



272 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

bond of custom that fastened the cultivator to the soil and 
deprived him of his natural freedom to leave his home. The 
cultivator, once nominally free, who had been in a sense 
joint owner of the land, degenerated gradually into a serf 
bound to the soil (adscript** gleb&\ and the bond was 
rivetted by the enactment which recognized the claim of 
the landlord to the agricultural service of the cultivators. 

Here we have a historical and social force running through 
the centuries. Luke is perhaps the earliest historian who 
takes notice of it as a factor in human history. The signifi 
cance of the tendency had not been observed when he wrote. 
Administrators used it, but did not discuss its nature. No 
one knew what it would become, and probably no one 
thought of it as a power that was remaking human society 
for the worse in the Mediterranean world. Luke notices it 
only because it produced the regulation that led Joseph and 
Mary to Bethlehem in order to facilitate the taking of an 
Imperial census. 

A feature like this cannot be invented. How should a 
mere inventor divine the future law of history, and attach to 
it the fate of the puppets whose motions he was devising ? 
A true and great historian may have the divine gift of insight 
into the laws that govern human history ; but this gift 
belongs only to those who love and study the truth, and not 
to inventors of airy fiction. 

Wilcken has observed another important feature of the 
Household enrolment. Not merely were written census 
returns handed in ; but the entire population had to 
present themselves personally for inspection. This he 
infers from a passage in a London Papyrus with practical 
certainty, and rightly calls it a very important point. 1 

1 Lond., ii. 55, 1. 39 : Mitteis- Wilcken, I, i. p. 194. 



XX. The Augustan Census-System. 273 

" Accordingly," as he says, " Joseph and Mary in the 
legend of Luke must both go to Bethlehem." The argu 
ment which Wilcken has in mind is that Luke, who knew 
this regulation to hold in every census, invented this detail 
regarding the journey of Mary in order to be true to the 
custom. 

Luke's narrative used to be called a legend, because it 
was historically false. Now it is called by Wilcken a legend 
because every detail has been demonstrated to be exactly 
correct. There is no way of satisfying those people who 
have made up their minds. Whatever proof they advance 
for their opinion, is shattered ; but they pluck victory out 
of the jaws of defeat, and in the disproof of their former 
argument they find a new one. One thing alone they 
reckon certain and necessary : Luke was an incapable and 
untrustworthy historian, and this must be demonstrated at 
all hazards and in any way that serves. 

The critics ridiculed the story of the journey, because it 
was absurd and inconceivable that Joseph should be called 
to his original home for enrolment. It is now known that 
this order to return to the home was regularly issued and 
enforced. 

The critics ridiculed the idea that Mary should have to 
return to the home, even if by any chance Joseph had to do 
so. The head of the house was sufficient. Wilcken has 
shown that every member of the household had to be 
present for enrolment, and that therefore Mary would have 
to go with Joseph. The only inference which he draws 
from this is that the legend arose out of the law and 'practice. 
May we not infer that it is a piece of real history, that 
Joseph and Mary did present themselves for the census at 
Bethlehem, and that Jesus was born there ? It is contrary 
to every canon of historical criticism that the story should 

18 



274 XX. The Augustan Census-System. 

be set aside as a legend, because all the details in it are 
true. There is no other instance in history of an invention 
like this, where so many circumstances and conditions of 
the Imperial administrations are transferred to a false date 
and applied to make up a false story, yet all with perfect 
truth to the circumstances and conditions of a different time. 
As the census involved that everyone should person 
ally present himself or herself to the officer for enumeration, 
it follows that the modern method of counting every person 
in his actual position during one day could not be applied. 
A year was open for the census ; and people might present 
themselves at their place of origin for registration at any 
time during the year ; but the later months of the year 
were most frequently used. We in modern time make the 
census for one fixed and universal moment, catching our 
migratory population at the given instant, as if by an in 
stantaneous photograph. The Romans tried to cope in 
another way with the difficulty of numbering people who 
might be far from home, viz. by bringing them at some 
time during the enrolment-year to their proper and original 
home ; and they permitted them to come for enrolment at 
any time during the year. On this rule there is much 
more to say. 



CHAPTER XXI 

WHEN QUIRINIUS WAS GOVERNING SYRIA 

THERE remains the difficulty connected with Luke's 
dating of the first census " in the time when Quirinius was 
governing Syria ". This loose method of dating is to our 
conceptions of chronology extremely unsatisfactory. It 
does not even imply a definite year, for governors of Syria 
often retained office for three years continuously. 1 It was, 
however, quite in accordance with the ancient custom ; and 
it is in Luke's own style, as we see in the dating of the 
coming of John in III. I, 2, "in the time when Pontius 
Pilate was governing Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of 
Galilee, and Philip his brother was tetrarch of the Iturean 
or Trachonitic region, 2 and Lysanias was tetrarch of the 
country of Abila". In that case the exact year of the 
reign of Tiberius is stated also, a unique date in Luke's 
work in respect of minuteness. Such vagueness in respect 
of time was characteristic of ancient literary style ; 3 and 
Luke wrote for his own time and the audience of his con 
temporaries, not for our modern taste. 

1 Legati of the Emperor very commonly governed for a period of three 
years : under Tiberius, who disliked changes, some held office in a province 
for a much longer time. 

2 This geographical definition is very often mistranslated and misunder 
stood : it indicates one region, not two regions, viz. the region which might 
be called equally well from different points of view Ituraean and Trachonitic. 
There is no geographical term Ituraea, only the tribe Ituraei and the 
adjective: see "Expositor," Jan., 1894, p. 52; on Lysanias, p. 297 below. 

8 " St. Paul the Traveller," pp. 18, etc., and Index III. 

(275) 



276 XXI. When Quirinius 

Such as it is, the dating by Quirinius has been a serious 
difficulty ; and in solving it Egyptian discovery has given 
as yet no help. The progress of exploration in Asia Minor, 
however, has come to the aid of Luke, and has shown that 
his words give an almost exact date, certainly a date under 
Herod the king, which is the really important and indis 
pensable fact. A year or two up or down in Herod's reign 
is a matter of modern chronological exactitude ; but a date 
under Herod is necessary, if Luke and Matthew are right. 

Here we are deprived also of Mommsen's support. It 
was mentioned above in Chap. XIX. that that great historian 
regarded all the other statements of Luke in II. 1-3 about 
the manner and origin of the census as probably right ; but 
he felt no doubt that Luke was wrong about Quirinius and 
the date, on the double ground that Quirinius did not 
govern Syria until after the death of Herod, and that he 
made no census of Judea before A.D. 6. 

In these two negative statements, as we shall see, 
Mommsen went beyond the evidence accessible in his time ; 
and, in fact, his clear summary of the evidence shows 
that the statements are merely his individual estimate of 
the outcome of considerations which are far from producing 
certainty. It is rare for Mommsen to speak with absolute 
confidence where the evidence only warrants probability; 
but he was here carried away by the inveterate nineteenth 
century prejudice against the superhuman relations involved 
in the narrative: there must be something wrong some 
where in Luke's recital of the 1 circumstances. 

Mommsen's statements in respect of Quirinius have 
since been quoted frequently by the critics who were hostile 
to Luke; but, as has been already mentioned, none of 
them ever mentioned his decision in favour of Luke in all 
other respects. This they omitted quietly. I do not 



was Governing' Syria. 277 

mean that they intentionally concealed either evidence 
or testimony unfavourable to their view; but only that 
they were constitutionally incapable of judging fairly and 
of seeing the natural import of Mommsen's words. They 
were on the outlook for evidence and opinions that could 
be quoted against Luke; and statements favourable to 
him made no impression on their mind, and did not 
remain in their memory. 

Gradually the opinion of modern scholars has crystallized 
into the conclusion that Quirinius governed Syria twice, 
the second occasion being in A.D. 6-7. The reasons for 
this conclusion were stated most powerfully by Mommsen 
in I883, 1 on which occasion he revised some of his earlier 
judgments. Until new evidence was discovered, there was 
nothing to add to his discussion of the whole subject. 

Yet Prof. P. W. Schmiedel, in a work intended to be a 
storehouse of assured facts for the general public and for 
students, the " Encyclopaedia Biblica," dismisses as fanciful 
that supposition of the two governorships of Quirinius 
with an airy and pretentious but quite ignorant dictum. 
His words are quoted above on p. 229. If Dr. Schmiedel 
had taken the trouble to make himself master of the history 
of Augustus's reign as stated by modern scholars, he would 
not have dared to print his assertion ; but as it stands in 
the Encyclopaedia it is regarded by credulous English and 
American scholars as possessing the authority of accepted 
historical judgment. 

Mommsen's reasoning convinced the cautious and careful 
compilers of the great Biographical Dictionary of the 
Empire, 2 de Rohden and Dessau, who speak of the first 
government as " sine dubio ". I shall follow the detailed 

1 " Res Gestae Divi Augusti," p. 168 ff. 

2 " Prosopographia Imperil Romani," HI. p. 287 f. 



278 XXL When Quirinius 

biography of Quirinius as stated by them and by Mommsen, 
and it will be found that the simplest way is to throw the 
present chapter into the form of a biography of Quirinius, 
and thus to bring his governorship of Syria into its proper 
relation with the other events of his career. 

We are able to found the biography of Publius Sulpicius 
Quirinius on Tacitus's sketch in the Annals, III. 48 (com 
pare II. 30 and III. 22, 23), given on the occasion of his 
death in A.D. 21 at an advanced age. This account is in 
valuable, because it is in chronological order, although, as 
usual with Tacitus, no precise dates l are stated. 

Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was sprung from a very ob 
scure family in the small Latin town of Lanuvium ; and 
fought his way by sheer merit and hard work to a foremost 
position in the State. He was evidently one of those cap 
able and energetic, but hard and unlovable, military officers, 
whom Rome produced in such numbers, as occasion re 
quired. He probably fought his way up in the army ;; but 
no record of the humbler stages in his career is preserved, 2 
though the words of Josephus and Tacitus clearly point to 
such a period. 3 

After his praetorship, the date of which is not known, he 

1 So his biography of Agricola has no dates, for Tacitus evidently thought 
dates unliterary and beneath the level of his subject. Only in a sort of ap 
pendix, c. 44, he gives the dates of birth and death, leaving the rest of the 
career to be apportioned between those limits. In " St. Paul the Traveller," 
p. 18, I illustrated Luke's custom in such matters by this biography, which 
soars above chronology. A reviewer retorted that the " Agricola " is one of 
the most certain and perfect pieces of chronological statement : he trusted to 
school texts where all the dates are given in the margin (not always correctly). 
It has taken much study and comparison of many other sources of knowledge 
to fix the dates, and more than one is uncertain. Many modern scholars de 
clared that Tacitus gives a wrong date for Agricola's birth. 

2 It was not usual to record any position lower than equestrian in the career 
of one who attained senatorial rank. 

3 Josephus, " Ant. Jud.," xvm. 4, i ; Tacitus, " Annals," in. 48. 



was Governing Syria. 279 

apparently governed Crete and Cyrene, and in this position 
conducted the war against the nomad tribes of the Cyrenaic 
desert to a successful issue. 1 How difficult a matter this 
must have been we can imagine from the troubles which 
the Italians recently encountered in the same region, warring 
against the descendants of the same nomads, and from the 
very moderate success which they achieved. 

The victory of Quirinius proved his ability, and marked 
him out for further work of a similar kind in the East. There 
was a war to which Augustus was in honour bound. The 
Homonadenses, a tribe of the Cilician Taurus region, had 
defeated and killed Amyntas, one of the client-kings, in 
25 B.C., and Augustus as his heir was required by law and 
religion and duty to take up the quarrel and pay the debt, 
because he had accepted the inheritance. The heir was 
bound to accept every obligation along with the estate, viz. 
the kingdom of Amyntas, which was organized as the new 
Imperial province of Galatia. 

Ttie Homonadenses are ranked by Strabo and Tacitus in 
Cilicia, 2 and the command in the war against them naturally 
fell to the governor of Syria, of which province Cilicia 
formed a part. Moreover there were no legions in 
the continent of Asia except those stationed in Syria. 
Quirinius, therefore, naturally was appointed governor of 
Syria in order to conduct this war ; and the question is what 
date should be assigned to this office. 

In order to govern Cilicia Quirinius must be consul ; and 

1 This office is conjectural. Florus says that he conquered the Musulamii 
and Garamantes ; but a proconsul did not usually have command of an army. 

a Tacitus says per Ciliciam; Mommsen, Nipperday-Andresen, etc., would 
read super Ciliciam; but there can be no doubt that the name Cilicia ex 
tended to cover all this part of the Taurus country, as Appian and Strabo 
show. This region was excluded from the province, but the relations with it 
naturally fell within the purview of the governor of Syria and Cilicia. 



280 XXL When Quirinius 

he was appointed in 1 2 B.C. The next office in his career 
mentioned by Tacitus is his proconsulship of Asia. Between 
those two falls the war in the Taurus region conducted by 
him as legatus of the Emperor in Syria. According to 
Mommsen there is open for the proconsulship of Asia either 
3 B.C. or the period between A.D. 2 and 5 (see p. 295). 
The other years are filled by known proconsuls. 

Mommsen placed the proconsulship of Asia in A.D. 2-3, and 
the war against the Homonadenses in 3-2 B.C. ; but against 
so late a date there were two strong arguments, which he 
did not sufficiently estimate: (i) It is improbable that the 
task of avenging the death of Amyntas would have been so 
long postponed. Urgent and pressing needs of the State 
prevented Augustus from discharging that sacred and im 
perative duty until 1 2 B.C. ; but then there was more leisure, 
and the Emperor was free to think of the Homonadenses. 
It is difficult to think that this task was postponed long after 
12 B.C. (2) Mommsen's theory is that between 12 and 3 
B.C. nothing worthy of note occurred in the career of Quirin 
ius, and no office was held by him ; but that between 3 B.C. 
and A.D. 6, there came in succession an extraordinarily rapid 
succession of great events, and that Quirinius was successively 
governor of Syria, commander in a great war, proconsul of 
Asia, in charge of Armenia, married to one of the noblest 
Roman ladies, and governor of Syria a second time. This 
also seems improbable. 

Both these reasons are negative, and merely show that 
Mommsen's chronology is involved in a certain improba 
bility; but positive reasons might be strong enough to 
overcome the negative. There are, however, no positive 
reasons. He rested his chronology mainly on the impro 
bability of any other system ; and he apparently did not 
consider a dating so early as we shall see cause to adopt. 



was Governing Syria. 281 

In fact it is now proved that the Homonadensian war 
during which Quirinius held the government of Syria, must 
have occurred much earlier ; and it may be confidently 
said that the consulship of Quirinius in 12 B.C. was intended 
to qualify him for commanding the armies of Syria, and to 
organize the preparation for that war. This is the outcome 
of a series of inscriptions found in Asia Minor in the 
southern parts of the province Galatia along the northern 
outskirts of the Homonadensian part of the Taurus region, 
and in the Pisidian Taurus westwards from the Homona 
densian territory. This evidence was unknown to Momm- 
sen when he was writing about Quirinius in 1883 ; and, 
as I know from himself, he saw that it affected the question. 
Since he died the evidence has been much strengthened 
and is now determining. 1 

In treating this subject Mommsen could approach it only 
from the side of Syria and Cilicia, where some literary 
evidence was at hand, mainly Tacitus and Josephus. There 
was also the Tiburtine fragment of the epitaph of Quirinius. 2 
There is, however, another important side to the operations. 
The war was naturally waged from the north, i.e. the 
Galatian side, as well as from the south and south-east, 
the Cilician side. That was, of course, obvious and 
necessary ; the Homonadenses were caught between the 
two Roman provinces, and operations on both sides must 
have been carried on ; but no evidence was known when 
Mommsen was discussing the subject. The evidence has 

1 In my book " Was Christ Born at Bethlehem ? " (1898), I placed the 
war from 8 to 6 B.C. The latest discoveries point probably to a date so 
early as 10-7 B.C. Herod the king lived till 4 B.C. 

2 In that epitaph the name of the deceased is lost, but part of his career 
remains, including his second administration of Syria. The epitaph was re 
stored to Quirinius by a series of scholars, culminating in Mommsen 's 
decisive argument, " Res Gestae Divi Aug.," p. 168. 



282 XXL When Quirinius 

now been discovered : It lies in the purpose and the early 
history of the Roman Colony at Pisidian Antioch and of 
the other colonies in Galatia, along the southern frontier of 
the province. The statement of this evidence is simply the 
statement of Augustus's design in founding " Colonia 
Caesarea Antiochea," 24 B.C. 

In 25 B.C. news reached Augustus that Amyntas, king of 
Galatia, had been killed by the Homonadenses, and had 
made the Emperor his heir. Augustus accepted the in 
heritance. 1 The situation in the East was critical. The 
tribes of Taurus were free to ravage the fertile plains on the 
north, especially towards Pisidian Antioch, which had lost 
the protection of Amyntas and his army, now defeated. 
The death of the king proves that his army must have 
suffered very severely. The character of the Taurus region 
exposed the invaders to great peril ; and Amyntas, while 
evidently a man of activity, seems not to have had much 
military experience, 2 and there is no reason to think that he 
possessed the caution and skill needed for pressing an in 
vasion in such a difficult country. 

The most urgent matter for Augustus was to ensure the 
safety of the southern regions. No reorganization of the 
province was, apparently, attempted. 3 It was taken over as 
Amyntas had arranged its various regions. For the defence of 
the south the city of Antioch, the old guardian of the southern 

1 By Roman law the heir was free to accept or reject an inheritance ; but 
he accepted it with all the burdens of the previous owner, the discharge of 
which was a religious duty. Hence " sine sacris hereditas," an inheritance 
without any religious burdens, was a proverbial expression for a lucky wind 
fall. 

2 He had been the secretary of king Deiotarus. 

3 Gardthausen notes that nothing is said of any reorganization ; it is true 
that the records are scanty, and silence on such a matter causes no wonder ; 
but other reasons show the probability that the organization of Amyntas was 
accepted by Augustus. 



was Governing' Syria. 283 

Phrygian lands, was reconstituted as a Roman garrison 
city, i.e. a "Colonia". We must date the foundation as 
early as possible ; l for the new Colonia played a consider 
able part in the events of the first years of the province. 
We can dimly see the character of the situation, but the 
details elude us. 

Now 25 B.C. is too early, because there was not time to 
send the coloni after the news reached Augustus; there 
fore 24 represents the actual operation. 2 There were among 
the coloni soldiers of the Fifth Legion called Gallica, and 
perhaps of the Seventh Legion ; four epitaphs of veterans 
of the former and two of the latter have been found. 

In official usage, the new city lost its old name Antioch, 
and was called Colonia Caesarea for about seventy years ; 
but under Claudius or Nero the original name was officially 
added. This implies that in the ordinary language of the 
old population, the name Antioch was never disused, and 
that it forced its way even into Latin official custom as 
early as 45-60. The name in Greek was always Antioch. 

The primary purpose of Colonia Caesarea (Antioch) was 
to ward off the attacks of the Homonadenses and the 
Pisidian mountaineers. It was on that account a place of 
Imperial interest ; and the honour was allowed it to elect 
Drusus Germanicus, the stepson of Augustus, to be its 
duumvir, or chief magistrate, for two successive years. 3 A 
squadron of auxiliary cavalry was stationed at Antioch, 
and took the name Germaniciana from Drusus. War was 
the duty of the city, and its magistrates were soldiers. The 

1 The proof lies partly in the early importance of the Colonia and the 
urgency of the crisis, partly in the Latin epitaph of an original colonist, which 
uses twice the ending -ai for -ae in dative singular feminine (unpublished). 

2 Probably, however, 25 B.C. may have been the official date, while 24 was 
the actual settlement. 

3 Calder in "Journal of Roman Studies," 1912, p. 100. 



284 XXL When Quirinius 

Imperial hold on the southern part of the province Galatia 
was maintained through its military power. The Homona- 
denses had one broad and tempting way open for their 
plundering raids : they descended on the rich valley of 
lake Trogitis, lying deep among their own mountains, and 
swept north along lake Caralis, until they came up against 
the walls of Colonia Caesarea (Antioch). 1 

The Roman colonists must have been familiar with the 
name and deeds of that tribe ; they had little rest until the 
great war came. That the war was coming must have 
been known to them from the first. Their history was de 
termined, and their importance was measured, according 
to a standard of the Homonadenses. 

The warlike character of Colonia Caesarea would suggest 
that the election of Drusus Germanicus for two years as 
duumvir took place immediately after his German victories 
in II B.C. He died in 9 B.C., and the title Germanicus was 
bestowed after his death. Probably the name was given to 
the ala, when news of his death in office and of his title 
arrived. Then Quirinius was elected for 8 B.C. (See p. 286.) 

It had never been suspected that Quirinius was brought 
into any relations with Antioch ; but, as soon as the 
early history of the Colonia Caesarea is taken into consider 
ation, we see that his operations during the war must 
have been followed there with the keenest interest. Yet 
I felt astonished when my eyes lit on his name in the 
following inscription at Antioch, and still more when in 
the following year I found a second inscription in his honour. 
All the importance of this evidence flashed on my mind as I 

x The description given by Strabo in pp. 569, 570, 668, 680, is clear when 
they are read in connexion with each other. The plain with many oi-AaJves 
of which he speaks is the deep gap in the Homonadensian Taurus where 
Trogitis lies against the indented mountain-wall. 



To face p. 285 




PLATE I. Basis of the first statue erected in Pisidian Antioch, probably 8 B.C., 
in honour of Caristanius, praefectus of Quirinius, honorary duumvir of the 
Colony, while governor of Syria. The stone is now lying on its side. 



was Governing Syria. 285 

read the name in the first of these two inscriptions, for the 
evidence had been clear before me since writing on the sub 
ject ; and in this text I read the confirmation of all that I had 
contended for, viz. that the war and his governorship of 
Syria must have taken place several years earlier than 
Mommsen had allowed, " in the days of Herod the King ". 
The following inscription was copied at Antioch in 1912 
by Mr. J. G. C. Anderson of Christ Church, Oxford, and in 
1913 by Professor Calder ; and by myself on both occasions. 
The photograph is by Lady Ramsay. 

C. Carista[nio To Gaius Caristanius 

C. F. Ser. Front[oni (son of Gaius, of Sergian tribe) 

Caesiano Iuli[o, Fronto Caesianus Juli[us, 

praef(ecto) fabr(um), pon[tif(ici), chief of engineers, pontifex, 

sacerdoti, praefecto priest, prefect of 

P. Sulpici Quirini duumv[iri, P. Sulpicius Quirinius duumvir, 

praefecto M. Servili. prefect of M. Servilius. 

Huic primo omnium To him first of all men 
publice d(ecurionum) d(ecreto) statua at state expense by decree of the 
posita est. decuriones, a statue was erected. 

In 1912 I had the great advantage of stating my views 
about this inscription to Professor H. Dessau, of Berlin, 
who since Mommsen's death stands in the foremost rank as 
an authority on such matters as are involved. In regard to 
the date between 10 and 7 B.C. and the general bearing, he 
confirms the views which are here stated. 1 

1 1 am permitted to quote the words of his letter : " mit der Erklarung und 
zeitlicher Ansetzung der Inschrift des Caristanius Fronto Caesianus haben 
Sie zweifellos recht. Nur in ein paar Einzelheiten mochte ich mir erlauben 
von Ihnen abzuweichen." Then follow remarks (which I adopted) about 
Julius and Servilius. His reading lulio, for luliano, was confirmed in 1913 
by the discovery of the following inscription. The three cognomina and the 
use of Julius as degraded to a cognomen already at this early period, he de 
fends by quoting C.I.L. in. 551, xiv. 3606 (Inscr. Sel. 921), C.I.L. 
vi. 1403 (Inscr. Sel. 966), ix. 4197, and later vm. 12,442 and in. 15,208 
(Inscr. Sel. mo). 



286 XXL When Quirinius 

Gaius Caristanius Fronto was either one of the original 
colonists or the son of one of them. In Antioch, as other 
inscriptions show, his family played a leading part for more 
than a century ; his great-grandson rose to senatorial rank, 
and attained the consulship and perhaps also the proconsu 
late of Asia. The first statue which was erected in the 
colony at the expense of the colonial government in accor 
dance with a decree of the decuriones, stood on the basis 
which bore this inscription. Now as to the facts which 
brought him in contact with Quirinius. 

Quirinius was elected chief magistrate (duumvir] of the 
colony Antioch ; and he nominated Caristanius as his prce- 
fectus to act for him. This sort of honorary magistracy 
was often offered to the reigning Emperor by colonice ; but 
in such cases the Emperor was elected alone without a col 
league. Under the early emperors, and especially under 
Augustus, the same compliment was sometimes paid to 
other distinguished Romans, chiefly members of the Imper 
ial family. Exceptional cases occur in which the field of 
choice was wider. 1 This inscription is the most complete 
example of the wider choice : it mentions two such cases : 
both Quirinius and Servilius were elected in this way. 

There must have been some special reason in these two 
cases. Quirinius was not a man of any special distinction. 
Why should he be elected in so complimentary a fashion a 
magistrate of this remote colony in south-eastern Phrygia. 
(i.e. or southern Galatia) ? He had neither Imperial connex 
ion nor outstanding reputation to commend him to the Anti- 
ochian coloni. But everything is clear when we remember 
that he conducted the war against the Homonadenses, with 
whom Antioch was constantly at strife. It was at the 
time of that war that they elected Quirinius a duumvir. 
1 Mommsen, " Staatsrecht," n. 814, 828. 



was Governing Syria. 287 

It is not at first sight obvious why M. Servilius was 
elected to the chief magistracy. He was indeed a noble ; l 
but of his career nothing eminent or creditable is known, 
except that he was consul in A.D. 3 ; he was, however, a 
favourite of Tiberius. He also must have been in some way 
brought into relation with the colony ; and the obvious pro 
bability is that he was governor of Galatia. This would 
fully account for the compliment. On this view it is 
tempting and plausible to suppose that he was duumvir 
along with or immediately after Quirinius, 2 and that they 
cooperated as governors of the two Eastern provinces Syria 
and Galatia, in the war, operating from the south and the 
north respectively. The friendship lasted, see p. 296. 

On the interpretation which has just been stated, the 
governors of the two provinces concerned both nominated 
Caristanius to act for them in Antioch. This would have 
the effect of putting all the force of the Colonia Caesarea 
under the direction of one man, and would have a similar 
effect to the old Roman method of naming a dictator in 
critical times and putting the whole force of the State under 
his control. 

Now as to the date of this event, which fixes the time 
when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Several reasons, 
stated by Mr. Cheesman, place it early. 

(i) The fact mentioned about the statue of Caristanius, 

1 Tacitus, " Ann.," in. 48. I follow Professor Dessau's identification. 
I had thought of an older M. Servilius, legate of Brutus and Cassius in Asia 
in 43 B.C. 

2 When the Emperor was elected to an honorary duumvirate, he had no 
colleague. When any other person was thus elected, he had a colleague in the 
ordinary .fashion, as Mommsen thinks (" Staatsrecht," n. 828). Mr. Chees 
man, who published in * Journal of Roman Studies," 1913, all the inscriptions 
of the Caristanii, mentions an example of a governor of a province being elected 
to an honorary magistracy by a city of the province. 



288 XXL When Quinnius 

that it was the first erected at state cost in the colony, 
would in itself suggest an early date. Not many years are 
likely to have elapsed after the foundation of the colony, 
before a statue was erected in the city. The connexion of 
Caristanius with the glorious events of the Homonadensian 
war gives a good reason for the honour of a statue. 

(2) Whereas Colonia Caesarea Antiochea was founded 
immediately after the formation in 25 B.C. of the province 
Galatia, 1 the five Pisidian colonies were founded together, 
and at a different time from Antioch, as appears from the 
names which mark them as a group founded on one 
plan : 2 

Julia Augusta Prima Fida Comamenorum 

Julia Augusta Felix Cremnensium 

Julia Augusta Olbasena 

Julia Augusta Felix Gemina Lustra 3 

Julia Augusta colonia Parlais. 4 

The first three of these coloniae commanded the roads 
leading north from the Pamphylian cities Attaleia and 
Perga ; and they had no connexion with the Homonadenses, 
but were founded as part of a general plan for the peaceful 
administration of the whole mountain regions of the 
Cilicians >and Pisidians. 5 Lystra or Lustra, the fourth, 
commanded the point where the Isaurican road issues from 

1 " Cities of St. Paul," p. 268. 

8 Colonia Caesarea Antiochea was in the survey of Agrippa, before 12 B.C., 
and thence Pliny took it ; but none of the Pisidian colonise were known to 
Pliny or mentioned in that survey, and they are therefore later. 

3 Lustra in Latin on coins and inscriptions (evidently under the influence 
of popular Roman etymology) : Lystra in Greek. 

4 The names of Parlais and Olbasa may probably have been lengthened 
by other titles. We possess only late coins, in which the titles of these 
colonice are usually cut short (e.g. at Lystra). 

5 Strabo, p. 569, describes the danger from the Cilicians and Pisidians : the 
Cilicians whom he means are the Homonadenses, pp. 668, 679. 



was Governing Syria. 289 

the hills on to the plain of Lycaonia. The fifth, Parlais, 
stood at the south-eastern corner of lake Caralis, and 
blocked the road leading direct from the Homonadensian 
country towards Antioch : it held the crossing of the con 
siderable river which flows from lake Caralis into lake 
Trogitis : see p. 284. 

That these five Augustan coloniae were founded together 
is proved by the fact that they were connected with Colonia 
Caesarea Antiochea by a great road-system called Via 
Sebaste. Several milestones of the system have been found 
between Antioch and Lystra, and one was found actually 
on the site of Comama. All give the distance from Antioch 
(C.I.L., III. 12217; J.H.S., 1902, pp. 102, 105): they are 
all practically identical except for the number. 

The five Pisidian colonies, therefore, must have been 
founded at this time, 6 B.C. ; and the operation resulted 
from the Homonadensian war, and formed part of the paci 
ficatory settlement. The war was completed by the system 
of roads and garrison cities ; and this system was so effec 
tual that the coloniae seem never to have been called upon 
to act. Their presence was sufficient to keep the peace 
after the war ; but only one of them was designed by its 
position to be a check on the Homonadenses. 1 

The war therefore falls between 10 and 7 B.C. Quirinius, 
consul in 1 2, probably came to Syria in 1 1 , and the war 
would begin in 10. The description which Strabo gives 
of the country corresponds with that drawn by Professor 

1 On Mommsen's side it might be said that the colonise were founded to 
restrain the Homonadenses before the war; but the scheme is far wider than 
that. It relates to the whole of Pisidia ; and probably the Roman power was 
not strong enough in these mountain regions to maintain a colony at Parlais 
until after the war. If the Imperial government had been able to found and 
maintain this system of colonies before the war, there was no reason why it 

19 



290 XXI. When Quirinius 

Sterrett and with the truth ; it is cut by very deep canons, 
with sides rising almost perpendicularly, in which flow the 
Calycadnus and its tributaries; and passage across the 
country is slow and difficult for a small party of travellers, 
and much worse for armies. There were doubtless many 
fortified villages which had to be reduced, one by one. 
Amyntas had captured some of them before his death. 

The war probably lasted more than two years, as 
Quirinius' successes were rewarded by two supplications ; 
and the end was crowned by the bestowal of the insignia 
of a triumph. The triumphal ornaments were not fre 
quently granted by the Emperors, and only for complete 
success in a war of real importance. This occupied the 
years 10-8 B.C. Then followed the general reorganization 
of the mountain-region in 7 and 6 B.C. This was naturally 
left to the governor of Galatia, in which all the garrison 
cities were situated. 1 The work of Quirinius was ended. 

So much might be inferred from the first Antiochian in 
scription about Quirinius. The statue tells a tale of 
victory. The coloni were proud of their connexion with 
Quirinius and their place in the war, and the first public 
statue that was erected in the colonia was in honour of their 
own citizen who acted as praefectus of the great general. 

The next inscription confirms these inferences. It de 
pends on my own copy alone. The stone on which it is 
engraved is built into the wall of a courtyard in the village 
of Hissar-ardi, close to Antioch. The house is near the 

should have waited till 6 B.C. No sufficient power was applied sooner. 
The war marks the beginning of a general system of safety and strength. 
Previous to the war all rested on Colonia Caesarea. 

1 The territory of the Homonadenses was situated towards the northern 
side of Taurus, i.e. "within Taurus," as Strabo, p. 668, says. This corres 
ponds with the situation of their mountains above and on the flanks of lake 
Trogitis, as already described. 



was Governing 1 Syria. 291 

mosque, in a street that runs off at right angles from the 
stream on the opposite bank ; and when the gate is opened, 
it hides the stone. Moreover, the stone is below the sur 
face of the ground, and only a few letters appear. 

C. Caristani[o C. F. Ser(gia) To Gaius Caristanius (son of Gaius, 

Frontoni Caesiano of Sergian 

lulio praef. fabr., tribuno mil. tribe) Pronto Caesianus Julius, 

leg(ionis) XII fulm(inatae), praef(ecto) chief of engineers, tribune of soldiers 

coh(ortis) Bos(porianae), of legion XII Fulminata, praefect of a 

pontif(ici), praef(ecto) P. Sulpici Bosporan cohort, 

Quirini pontifex, praefectus of P. Sulpicius 

II vir(i), praef(ecto) M. Servili, praef Quirinius 

(ecto) duumvir, praefectus of M. Servilius, 

praefectus of 

It appears from this second inscription that the praefectus 
of Quirinius became a man of some distinction in the Im 
perial service. Before the war he had only been " chief of 
the engineers," a merely titular position, forming an intro 
duction to the career of colonial magistracy. After the war 
he commanded a cohort of infantry, raised in the territory 
of King Polemon of Bosporus, and he was also a tribune in 
the twelfth legion Fulminata. According to a famous tale, 
this was the legion which, being wholly or mainly Christian, 
was able by its prayers to cause a storm of rain and thus to 
save the army of Marcus Aurelius from perishing of thirst ; 
and from this incident it was called the " thundering 
legion " ; but here we have the name attached to it more 
than 150 years before the time of Marcus. 1 See concluding 
Note, p. 296. 

After the Imperial offices the colonial service of Caris 
tanius is stated ; most of this is mentioned in the first 
inscription. The order of enumeration is not chrono 
logical ; it is clear that Caristanius was praefectus fabrum, 
and afterwards held all the colonial offices mentioned in the 

1 The name means " having the thunderbolt in its insignia ", 



292 XXL When Quirinius 

first inscription. Then his military career in the Imperial 
service was continued as commander of an auxiliary 
cohort and tribune of the twelfth legion, which both 
probably took part in the Homonadensian war, and which 
always continued to be a part of the Eastern armies. It is 
probable that the cohort was sent by King Polemon for 
this war, and that it now was enrolled for the first time 
among Roman troops. 

The second inscription breaks off at the most tantalizing 
point. It was evidently engraved on a wall, and continued 
on a lower stone. Caristanius was praefectus of another 
honorary magistrate in the colonia. His municipal career, 
therefore, was remarkable. He was the outstanding 
citizen, nominated on his merits by three distinguished 
Romans, who were elected titular duumvir of Antioch. 
Probably the name of the third noble duumvir would clear 
up the whole situation, if the other stone be ever found. 

As it is we have the records of a typical yet eminent 
Antiochian colonus. The colonia was a frontier fortress 
in Phrygia "towards Pisidia," as Strabo puts it. Its early 
history was of frontier wars. Its leading citizens were 
soldiers. A year or more before 6 B.C. it paid Quirinius 
the compliment of electing him an honorary magistrate ; 
but this was no mere empty compliment : it was part of 
the organization of resources for the Homonadensian war. 
It is also a crowning step in the proof that the story in 
Luke II. 1-3 is correct, for it exhibits to us Quirinius as 
engaged in the war, and therefore as governor of Syria 
before 6 B.C. Now Servilius was succeeded as governor of 
Galatia by Cornutus Aquila, who still held office 6 B.C., 
when the construction of the Via Sebaste and the founda 
tion of the Pisidian colonies was going on : and Quirinius 
governed at the same time as Servilius (or earlier). 



was Governing Syria. 293 

The exact year is a matter of chronological interest ; but 
it was in the reign of king Herod. Every circumstance 
narrated by Luke has been conclusively proved to be 
natural and probable. The circumstances are those which 
ordinarily accompanied a Roman census, and Quirinius was 
in office about that time for several years. See p. 300. 

Two other matters, however, demand comment, which 
may be brief. 

Why does Tertullian say that Sentius Saturninus held 
the census, if Quirinius was in office? Two answers are 
possible: (i) If Quirinius governed Syria part of the year, 
and was succeeded by Sentius, both Luke and Tertullian 
would be technically correct. We have seen that the taking 
of the census lasted a whole year, and that the method 
was not definitely fixed in all details until A.D. 62. It 
may well be, and in fact it may be regarded as inevitable, 
that there was a good deal of difficulty in working the first 
census, especially in Palestine. 

(2) It might be suggested and this is the most probable 
solution of the difficulty that both Quirinius and Sentius 
were legati of Augustus in Syria at the same time with 
different duties. It would be difficult for Quirinius to 
attend to the purely Syrian business, when he had this war 
on his hands. It is well-established that, in various other 
cases, two legati of the Emperor were present in a province 
at the same time. If Quirinius commanded the legions and 
military resources of Syria, while Sentius looked after the 
delicate and complicated political relations in Syria and 
Palestine, both would have enough to do. When Quirinius 
in A.D. 6 returned to administer Syria this would naturally 
lead to the expression in his epitaph " legatus of Syria 
again " (legatus iterum Syriae). An excellent example 
occurs on a milestone in Africa. Rutilius Gallicus was sent 



294 XXI. When Quirinius 

there, probably in A.D. 75, to hold the census. 1 At the 
same time the ordinary commander of the African army 
held office. On the milestone both are mentioned, followed 
by the joint title " legates Augusti ". The milestones were 
placed in regular course under the authority of the governor 
of the province. In this case both the ordinary and the 
extraordinary legatus are mentioned as authorizing the 
supervision of the road and the placing of the milestone. 

Again, as to the year of the " first census " in Palestine, 
that is a matter of chronology, and leads into other and 
wider fields. We have shown that Luke's words are exactly 
correct. We have also pointed out on Wilcken's authority 
that the early census-periods were a little irregular, and that 
it took more than fifty years to stereotype the process (ch. 
XX.). Elsewhere I have shown that the actual counting 
might have dragged on or been postponed as late as 6 B.C. ; 2 
and the sharp criticism of this part of my theory by Messrs. 
Grenfell and Hunt has not shaken or altered it even in the 
smallest degree. 3 It stands as it was written, a possibility, 
not (as they assume it to be) an assertion of confident 
dating ; and a corroboration of the possibility of such post 
ponement is stated in "Expositor," Nov., 1901, pp. 321 f. 4 
The postponement stands as a possibility ; but Tertullian's 
authority confirms the date 8 or 7 B.C. under Sentius, and 

1 Ad census accipiendos : the census year in the ordinary system was 75-6, 
and the provincials were counted in 76-7. We have stated the probability 
that the cives Romani were counted earlier than the provincials ; see ch. xx. 
We see also that the duty of taking the census lasted probably longer than a 
year, the Romans being counted in 75-6, and the provincials in 76-7. See the 
remarks on p. 245. 

2 " Was Christ Born at Bethlehem ? " ch. ix. 

3 " Oxyrynchus Papyri," Vol. II, pp. 207 ff. 

4 The operations in incorporating Paphlagonia in the province Galatia 
were postponed long. Even such a slight and simple matter as the taking of 
the oath of allegiance was performed moie than a full year too late. 



was Governing Syria. 295 

other considerations favour the date 8 : see ch. XI. The 
one argument against this early date is that it makes Jesus 
almost 33 years of age when His ministry began, while 
Luke says He was "about 30". 

Now if Luke could calculate[the other dates so carefully, he 
could have stated the exact age of the Saviour ; and he had 
probably some reason for the vaguer words "about 30". 
It might be suggested that the later rule among the Jews 
that public life should begin at the age of 30, was already 
known as a common practice ; and that Paul's entry on 
Jewish public business began at that age. Thus there was 
a motive prompting Luke to speak of 30 approximately: 
Jesus had fulfilled the Jewish custom. 

Note I. The later career of Quirinius need not detain us. 
He was proconsul of Asia in 3 B.C., 1 and in A.D. 2 he 
married Emilia Lepida, 2 whom he afterwards divorced. 3 
She was a great heiress, betrothed to Lucius Caesar, and the 
marriage must be dated after his death in A.D. 2. The 
Romans showed the minimum of delicacy in such matters 
especially where the hand of an heiress was concerned ; and 
we may take it that the marriage occurred very shortly after 
the death of Lucius. 4 

Then news came of the death of Lollius, the adviser of 
Gaius Caesar in Armenia ; and the ability of Quirinius, com 
bined with his experience in the East, recommended him 
for the responsible position of guide to their heir-apparent 
in his Eastern expedition. During A.D. 3 and part of 4, 

1 Mommsen and the Prosopogr. agree that 3 B.C. and A.D. 2 or 4 are open 
for this office, but A.D. 2 is too long after his consulship. 

2 Called by a slip Domitia Lepida in " Was Christ Born etc.," p. 234. 

3 His action against her in A.D. 20 was later than the divorce. 

4 Mommsen places the marriage in A.D. 4 or 5, after Quirinius returned from 
Armenia, and supposes an interval of 16 years ; but this is more difficult to 
reconcile with Suetonius' expression " the twentieth year ". 



296 Notes to Chapter XXI. 

Quirinius was in the East. Lucius Caesar died on the 
Lycian coast on 21 February, A.D. 4. It was probably on 
the way to or from Armenia that Quirinius paid court to 
Tiberius, an exile at Rhodes. This attention was not for 
gotten by Tiberius when he returned to power. In 6 
Quirinius was sent as legatus of Syria for the second time. 
He remained there two years or more, and then seems to 
have resided in Rome as an old man who had finished his 
public career. 

In advanced age, A.D. 20, " in the twentieth year " after his 
marriage, Quirinius brought a charge against his divorced 
wife ; this action was certainly a stage in the obscure and 
tortuous Imperial policy; and his old ally in the East, 
Servilius, appeared as a witness on his behalf. It was re 
garded as a duty in Rome to support one's friends in a law 
suit by testimony ; and the acquaintance gave Servilius 
the means of knowing the circumstances of Quirinius' 
household. 

Note II (p. 292). In " Klio," XIV. p. 57, Prof. E. Groag 
advances the hypothesis needless to say on good grounds 
that there was a legio xn. in the west under Octavian l and 
another legio XII. antiqua in the east under Antony, and he 
further adds the theory more hazardous, but still quite 
probable, otherwise it would not have been stated by such 
a scholar that Octavian, after his victory over Antony, 
united the two in the legio xil. Fulminata. On the other 
hand Henzen and Domaszewski think that Antony's legio 
XII. antiqua was an old legion of Caesar's army which 
Augustus retained, calling it first paterna, and thereafter 

1 It was, as inscribed bullets show, part of the forces that attacked L. 
Antony in Perusia, 40 B.C. : " Eph. Ep." vi. p. 66 f., no. 79 f. (C.I.L. xi. 6721, 
28 ff.) ; it was in Sicily, C.I.L. x. 7349, and probably at Actium, C.I.L. v. 2502, 
2520 (cf. Mommsen on p. 240, and Gardthausen, " Augustus," n. i. p. 216). 
That x. 7349 belonged to the troops on Augustus's side, however, is uncertain. 



Notes to Chapter XXL 297 

Fulminata. 1 In any case it is beyond doubt that the title 
Fulminata is as old as the time of Augustus. 

Note III (p. 293). Misapprehension and error were 
caused to some readers of my former argument about 
Quirinius by their confusing between two governors of Syria 
named Saturninus : one L. Volusius Saturninus in A.D. 4-5, 
and the other Sentius Saturninus in 8-6 B.C. 

Note IV. I am indebted to Dr. Moffatt's article in the 
"Expositor/' January, 1913, for directing attention to "the 
discovery of a new Greek inscription at Suk Wadi Barada, 
the site of Abila," described with a facsimile in the " Revue 
Biblique," 1912, pp. 533 ff. It turns out, however, to be only 
a new and improved copy of an inscription known for more 
than a century, and published, according to Pocock's copy, 
in the Berlin Corpus of Greek Inscriptions, III, no. 45 2 i. a 
While we are grateful for the improvement in the text and 
the confirmation of the genuineness and general trustworthi 
ness of Pocock's publication, we must grant Pocock the 
credit of having got everything in his copy that was im 
portant. All that was inferred from the new copy could 
be elicited with almost equal certainty from the old ; but 
a second copy always adds to the assurance of the first ; 
and hence Mommsen in Vol. Ill of the Corpus of Latin In 
scriptions mentions from time to time any new copy of pre 
viously published inscriptions. 

It is the dedication of a temple, etc., " on behalf of the sal- 

1 Henzen, " Bull. d'Inst.," 1867, p. 178 f. ; von Domaszewski, " Arch. 
Epigr. Mitt.," xv. 1892, p. 188, 30. Legio paterna, C.I.L. xi. 1058. Veterans of 
Antony's legio xu. were settled by Augustus in Patrae of Achaia, C.I.L. in. 
p. 95 ; Mommsen, " Res Gestae d. Aug.," ed. n. pp. 74, 119 ; P. M. Meyer, 
" Heerwesen d. Ptol. u. Rom.," p. 149 f. ; Vaglieri in Ruggiero's " Diz. 
Epigr.," in. p. 335. 

2 Dr. Moffatt mentions this in the later part of his short article. 



298 Notes to Chapter XXL 

vation of the Lords Imperial and their whole household " 
by " Nymphaios a freedman of Lysanias the tetrarch ". 

During the time when tetrarchs were in power at Abilene 
there was only one period when there could be a prayer 
and vow for the salvation of the Augustan Lords ; and 
that was between the beginning of the reign of Tiberius in 
A.D. 14 and the death of his mother Julia Augusta in A.D. 
29. How long exactly Lysanias ruled we know not ; but 
between those two limits his freedman could offer a dedica 
tion and vow for the Augusti, Tiberius and Julia. 1 It is no 
great step to suppose that Luke was right, when he dated 
the first appearance of John the Baptist (ill. i), A.D. 25, 
in the time when Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, the 
district of which Abila was the capital. 

Why not take the step ? Why not say that the reference 
in Luke is correct ? There has been absolutely no justifica 
tion for the unreasonable charge that this dating in Luke 
III. I was wrong. The most extraordinary suggestion was 
that he had misplaced a king, Lysanias, who reigned in 
Abila three-quarters of a century earlier. It was actually 
maintained that Luke had transferred that king to this 
much later period, and had miscalled him " tetrarch," pre 
sumably because the name " tetrarch " was commoner in 
that later time than it had been in the middle of the first 
century B.C. It was, however, known and used even then. 
The older Lysanias was a king : the younger was a tetrarch. 
That the two ought to be regarded as different persons, dis 
tinguished by title and by period, was sufficiently assured 
on Luke's sole authority. That is an elementary deduction 
from the most fundamental principles of historical criticism 
any other opinion involves the holder in absurdity : the 

1 Augustus did not associate his wife with himself as Empress. After his 
death Livia was recognized as Julia Augusta, one of the Imperial gods. 



Notes to Chapter XXL 299 

authority was quite good enough to justify a highly pro 
bable inference. 

In addition to this, however, we have the inscription of 
Abila, mentioning the tetrarch Lysanias in the time of the 
associated Lord and Lady, Tiberius and his mother, some 
where close to the very year when Luke asserts that the 
tetrarch was living and reigning. Here is the external 
authority of contemporary registration to confirm the natural 
interpretation of Luke's statement as good historical evi 
dence. The confirmatory authority was published and well 
known. Why was it disregarded ? There is only one 
sufficient reason, and that is ignorance ; the critics did 
not inquire into such matters of Roman custom when they 
told in favour of Luke; they took interest in them only 
when something against Luke might be expected from 
them. It really almost looks as if that were so. This 
inscription was sometimes misinterpreted as a dedication to 
Augustus and Tiberius as associated Emperors ; but no 
such joint inscriptions are known. Tiberius was recog 
nized as a colleague early in A.D. 12; but there is no 
reason to think that Augustus associated him as joint owner 
of the estates, or that the people recognized him as landlord 
and god before Augustus died. The inscription is a dedica 
tion to Tiberius and his mother, who were regarded as joint 
deities. 

The dedication is a good example of the prayer for the 
salvation of the Imperial deities, as described in Chap. XV. 
The freedman of Lysanias regards his master as a client 
of the Imperial household, and thus the freedman comes 
to be a part of that great household. 

Coins bearing the name and title of Lysanias the tetrarch 
are assigned by numismatists to King Lysanias of Chalcis 
on the assumption that he took the humbler title on coins. 



300 Notes to Chapter XXL 

This is rather strange, and it is possible that they should 
be restored to the tetrarch of Abila; but that is for 
numismatists to consider. 

Schiirer maintains Luke's correctness, but that did not 
stop the doubts (which are repeated in Dr. A. B. Bruce's 
Commentary). 

Note V (p. 284). The early importance and subsequent 
military insignificance of Antioch and the " Phrygian region " 
may explain a problem of the Roman auxiliary troops. 
There existed at one time seven Alae Phrygum. Of these 
only the seventh is actually mentioned in any known in 
scription ; the other six disappeared. Mr. Cheesman in his 
treatise on the auxiliary troops connects these Alae with 
the province Galatia (though five-sixths of Phrygia was in 
Asia) ; and he is certainly right. It may be conjectured 
that the whole seven were originally designed for the de 
fence of Galatic Phrygia or Mygdonia against the Homona- 
denses and the Pisidians. With them ranks Ala Augusta 
Germaniciana, which is mentioned only in Antiochian in 
scriptions. When the need for defence ceased, all these 
Alae except one ceased to be recruited. The Roman army 
was strong enough without them. Hereafter the progress 
of discovery at Antioch may prove this conjecture. 

Note VI (p. 293). The chronology is most probably as 
follows : all the steps have been separately established on 
independent evidence, and all point to the same result : 

Drusus duumvir at Antioch I and II 10 and 9 B.C. 

Quirinius duumvir at Antioch 8 B.C. 

Servilius duumvir at Antioch either 7 or 8 B.C. 

Cornutus governed Galatia before and during 6 B.C. 

Thus Quirinius and Servilius were governing the two 
adjoining provinces, Syria-Cilicia and Galatia, around the 
year 8 B.C., when the First Census was made. 



CHAPTER XXII 

ANALOGIES AND FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY 

AN ancient Hebrew view is expressed in the Song of 
Deborah : " the stars in their courses fought against Sisera ". 
To put this in modern and Western fashion takes away that 
vague majesty which belongs to it in its Hebrew form ; but 
we must try to conceive it in our fashion, which is more de 
finite and logically precise than the Semitic cast of thought. 
The will of God has imposed a certain harmony on His 
world. Those who resist His will find that His whole 
world fights against them. Every reader of the Greek epic 
and the Greek drama, especially ^Eschylus, is familiar with 
Greek expression of the same thought : that audacity and 
arrogance in man outrages and antagonizes the order of 
nature, the purpose of the supreme God, whether He choose 
to be called Zeus or by any other name. 1 

The stars, the winds, the clouds, the storm, and every 
other phenomenon of nature, are the messengers of God and 
the bearers of His power. As Isaiah says, " God came from 
Edom riding on a cloud ". Such thought leads to a certain 
reverent observation and study of the phenomena of nature, 
and lends dignity to the original form of astrology : that 
pseudo-science, however, rapidly and generally was degraded 
from a handmaid of religion to an instrument of magic, but 
it has in its origin an element of truth and right. The stars 
in their courses fight against the enemies of God, therefore 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 91 ff. 

(301) 



3O2 XXII. Analogies and 

their courses should be observed, and they can suitably be 
used in prophetic anticipation of the Divine action in the 
world. This study, however, is not really astrology, though 
analogous in some degree to it. 

Something of this thought expresses itself in the story of 
the Magi and their visit to Bethlehem (see above Ch. XI.) : 
the Magi envisage to us the relation in which the ac 
cumulated wisdom of the East stood to the expected 
appearance of the Divine Saviour. His coming was 
looked for, and was heralded at the proper time by His 
star not a new star, but the rising * of the proper star " in 
the fulness of the time". The time had come: the world 
was ready : the wisdom of the East knew approximately 
that the event was at hand : the rising of the star marked 
the crisis. What the star was I do not presume to judge ; 
nor can one tell certainly without some knowledge of 
Eastern doctrine. 2 

The book of the New Testament in which this aspect of 
cosmic influence is treated as highly important is the 
Apocalypse of John, the most thoroughly Hebraic part of 
the whole, and the part which was last in obtaining canonical 
recognition. Because the Hebraic element is so strong, the 
wider Christian outlook is less evident ; but that wider out 
look, the Christian view which surveys from a point above 
the Hebrew, seeing everything that the Hebrew sees, and 

1 Matthew n. 2 : " We have seen his star in the rising " : avaro\-fj t the ris 
ing of the star : avaro\ai, " the risings (of the heavenly bodies)," i.e. the East. 
Such is Matthew's distinction in n. i and 2 and 9. It is therefore a mis 
translation in A.V. and R.V. to put it, " we have seen His star in the East ". 

2 Col. Mackinlay has an interesting speculation, well worth study, in his 
book, " The Magi : how they knew Christ's star " (Hodder and Stoughton), 
on which I have said what I think to be probable in a paper in " Luke the 
Physician and other Studies in the History of Religion ". The chronological 
reasons point probably to the date which is indicated by his theory, 8 B.C. 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 303 

more than the Hebrew saw, belongs after all to the 
Apocalypse and justifies the final inclusion of it in the New 
Testament. There is an element in it which is required to 
complete and unify the wide range of the New Testament ; 
that element, however, is not simply Hebrew but greater 
than Hebrew ; it is Hebraism raised to its highest power. 1 
This Hebrew view was not in accordance with Luke's 
Western mind ; he does not include the story of the Magi 
in his gospel ; but that does not prove either that he was 
ignorant of it, or that he rejected it. It appealed to the 
Semitic mind : Luke writes for the Graeco-Roman mind, 
as exemplified in Theophilos. 2 Yet he expresses the same 
view in Western fashion : the shepherds under the guid 
ance of the Divine messengers in the heavens express the 
recognition of the new-born Saviour by the general world : 
Simeon and Anna utter the same recognition in the name of 

1 1 regret that Canon Charles is too completely occupied with the Hebrew 
aspect in his most interesting and instructive lectures on the Interpretation 
of the Apocalypse, and that he therefore becomes rather insensitive to the 
higher, the Christian, element in the book. After reading his work, one must 
wonder how the Apocalypse ever came to find its way into the New Testa 
ment : were its champions, and the general sense of the Church at last, un 
aware of the spirit and essence of Christianity ? I see that Dr. Charles regards 
me as accepting and upholding the astrological interpretation of the 
Apocalypse (see his p. 53). Readers of my " Letters to the Seven 
Churches " will wonder at his statement, for the idea of astrology never occurs 
in that book as a help to interpretation ; he depends on a sentence or two in 
my introduction to Dr. Lepsius' instructive but one-sided championing of 
that interpretation ; and the introduction as a whole shows that the sentences 
either do not justify his charge or fail to convey adequately my view. The 
introduction appears in several months' issue of the " Expositor " for 1911 
and 1912. 

2 That Theophilos is a definite Roman official is proved by the technical 
Roman title, Kpdrnrros. Still he is a sample of the audience which Luke 
had most in mind. Blass's view that Kpdriffros is a mere honorary vague ex 
pression cannot be accepted, and his own examples tell against him : " St. 
Paul the Traveller," p. 388. 



304 XXII. Analogies and 

Hebrew prophecy and old Hebrew traditional wisdom (II. 
32 and 34 f.). 

It is noteworthy that Luke assumes, without expressly 
stating the Matthaic and Hebrew point of view, that the 
Saviour must be born in Bethlehem. He tells how it came 
about that Jesus was born there ; but he does not mention 
that it was a fulfilment of prophecy : he simply assumes 
this in II. 4 and II. I. 69 f. as familiar to his readers. 1 

The Lukan historical point of view, however, is expressed 
in II. 1-4. There, in the severest and simplest terms of 
history, the Birth of Jesus is set amid its proper surroundings 
as an event in the development of Roman Imperial relations. 
We have just seen what marvellous insight into great im 
perial bureaucratic problems is here displayed (pp. 250, 272). 

Not merely are all the statements in Luke II. 1-3 true. 
They are also in themselves great statements, presenting to 
us large historical facts, world-wide administrative measures, 
vast forces working on human society through the ages. 
He sets before us the circumstances in which Jesus came 
to be born at Bethlehem, not at Nazareth, as caused by the 
interplay of mighty cosmic forces. This is not the fancy 
of some commonplace inventor of pseudo-romantic fiction, 
as the episode has been pronounced by the critics to be. 
It is the view of history as history is conceived by a true 
historian, who can look into the heart of things, and who 
thinks on a grand scale. 

Seen rightly, of course, every event may be thus con 
ceived. The forces of the universe make each individual 
man in their interplay, and unmake him when his brief span 
of existence is ended. But he who pictures or describes 

1 Similarly in n. 4 he assumes the essence of what Matthew tells more fully 
in i. 18 ff. I assume the accepted text of Luke here. 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 305 

the process whereby the man comes to be, is a true historian 
in the highest sense, or a poet. 

According to Luke's conception of this epoch-making 
historic event, Augustus formed a wonderful plan of world- 
survey and world-registration, and promulgated his order 
that all the world should be counted. The term used is 
"the inhabited and ordered world," which was practically 
restricted to the Roman Empire by the Romans ; but there 
lies behind it the vague conception that, rightly seen, the 
Empire is co-extensive with civilization, that what lies out 
side the Empire is mere barbarism, and that it is the destiny 
of the Empire gradually to assimilate the outer nations and 
raise them up to the level of the Imperial " salvation," and 
then admit them into the Imperial unity. 

The edict went forth, and it was followed in the East * by 
another, which directed to the service of the State a force 
of peaceful and contented ignorance, the force of inertia, 
closely akin to slavery, which we see through the ages 
ordering human affairs under the domination of masters and 
lords. 2 It suited the Imperial purpose to use this force for 
the enrolment; and the order that was issued affected 
among others Joseph and Mary, and brought them to 
Bethlehem. The highest rank and the humblest are brought 
together in this wonderful historical picture of a great 
bureaucratic device. 

I confess that, when I see the self-satisfied and preten 
tious ignorance of the critical theologians miscalling and 
vilifying this most wonderful little gem of historical insight 
and word-painting, I find it difficult to restrain my indigna 
tion. These are the dull and blind savants whom the 
modern world has accepted as learned, and to whom so 

1 No independent proof exists about the West. 9 See p. 267. 

20 



306 XXII. Analogies and 

many have humbly bowed down and done homage and 
worship. 

The man who cannot see the splendour of this passage, 
when he < sets aside all theological or anti-theological bias, 
must be blind to the spirit of history. Augustus, the mighty 
Emperor, and Mary with her infant child, are set over against 
one another. Luke was sensitive to the dramatic character 
of the episode: in fact, some critics have distrusted him, 
because he has too clear perception of the dramatic and 
literary aspect of his subject. He knew what he was telling. 
The autocracy of the Empire, the free voluntary obedience 
of the Church to its legitimate orders and its freedom where 
the Imperial right ceased : these were the chief factors in 
history as Luke saw it. Here they are set side by side in 
this opening scene, the Birth of Jesus. 

In a sense this scene is not necessary to the Gospel. It 
is not alluded to by John or by Mark. It can be omitted, 
and the Gospel remains intact and complete. Yet it is 
needed to place the religion of Jesus in its proper relation 
to human history. It is the indispensable introduction to 
the long struggle between the Church and the Empire. 

Luke throughout his history takes care to mention inci 
dents bringing Christ into relation with the Empire. 1 There 
were not many such incidents ; and the other Evangelists 
hardly allude to them. Luke alone records that Pilate thrice 
pronounced Jesus to be innocent ; John records Pilate's de 
claration twice, and the others only once. The Roman 
centurion and the commendation pronounced by Jesus, 
setting his faith above all that He had found in Israel, are 
mentioned by Luke and Matthew. As this Evangelist noted 
those matters, so he marks emphatically the relation of Jesus 
to the Empire even in His birth. 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 307. 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 



307 



For centuries the religion of freedom was destined to 
contend against the power of the great Empire ; and it is 
an arresting fact that even in His birth the Founder of that 
religion was tossed hither and thither at the command of 
the Emperor. And what was the result ? Only the triumph 
of Jesus. His poor mother must travel far to Bethlehem ; 
and the Child was there born ; but all that the Emperor 
achieved was to stamp the Child as the Fulfiller of prophecy 
and the promised Messiah. As in the death of Christ the 
sarcastic statement of His crime which Imperial policy 
placed over Him, was a placard blazoning Him to the world 
as the King of the Jews, so in His birth the Imperial order 
which drove the unborn Child to Bethlehem qualified Him 
to be the governor, who should be the shepherd of Israel 
(Matt. II. 5 f.). 

Such analogies with sayings of Scripture, or with events 
in the life of the Saviour, lay very near the heart of the 
early Christians, and were always being observed by 
them. The Smyrnaeans saw in Polycarp's death, beyond a 
doubt, a succession of features and conditions that marked 
out their great Bishop as a successor very like his Master ; 
and they were right, for his courtesy, dignity, patience, and 
sweetness of temper make him worthy of being compared 
in his death to Jesus. But the impressiveness of the ana 
logies lay in their springing naturally and spontaneously 
from the surrounding conditions, and in their being entirely 
unforced and not intentionally emphasized. 

Such coincidences were a feature of that early Christian 
literature, because they are a feature of life. This leads 
us into the wide and difficult subject that is called fulfil 
ment of prophecy. There was no fulfilment of prophecy, 
if an individual designedly got himself up to correspond to 
prophetic description. In order to fulfil prophecy, the 



308 XXII. Analogies and 

fulfilment must be unintentional. What we should call 
now-a-days "undesigned coincidence" is in the truest sense 
fulfilment of prophecy. If Mary, hoping that the son 
who was about to be born of her should be apparent to 
the world as the promised Messiah, had gone purposely to 
Bethlehem in order that the child might be born there, the 
fulfilment of prophecy would not have been so striking as 
it was when her journey to Bethlehem was forced on her by 
the constraint of external power. The order of nature, the 
law of the Roman world, drove her there without any in 
tention or plan for her son, and thus was brought about 
the coincidence between the prophecy and the event. 
Whether or not Luke intended it, he brings out in II. 1-3 
the wholly unintentional character of the incident. The 
Emperor ordered, God planned, Mary did as they willed 
her to do without any design except obedience. 

That there are many such unintended coincidences 
between the life of Paul and the life of the Saviour was the 
idea of Luke ; but he never forces this idea on his readers, 
or emphasizes the facts so as to impress the thought on 
them. As has been pointed out elsewhere, 1 the advent of 
Paul to the strange land of Macedonia was pictured by 
Luke like the coming of Jesus to the strange, almost hostile 
country of Samaria. Paul went out along the bank of a 
stream, and sat down, and spoke to the women that were 
met there ; and a woman, a foreigner living there, listened, 
and was moved and converted and baptized with her 
household. So Jesus had sat down weary by the spring 
near Sychar, 2 and a woman came for water, and He spoke 

1 " Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," p. 55. 

3 It is called a spring or fountain of flowing water in John iv. 6 (twice) 
and 14. The Orientals always seek for running water to drink (compare iv. 
10), if any can be obtained. The " well " of iv. u and 12 is a real difficulty 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 309 

to her. 1 In each case the woman opened the way to affect 
the whole town where she lived ; and both Jesus and Paul 
were pressed to remain. Those who knew the subsequent 
history of Lydia, i.e. the contemporary readers for whom 
the book was written, were aware how much is implied in 
this suggestion that she was influential in opening the door 
at Philippi. I have never been able to feel any hesitation 
on this point. Lydia, like Sergius Paullus and Simon of 
Samaria and Mnason, 2 is one of those figures in the Acts 
who were full of historic significance. They appear for a 
brief episode, and disappear from the book ; but the abrupt 
ness of their disappearance was suggestive. It has always 
seemed to me highly probable that Lydia, i.e. the " Lydian 
woman," was merely a familiar name, used according to a 
very frequent custom in the ^Egean world and Asia Minor 
generally. She had her own personal name, which would 
appear in legal documents, and wherever more formal courtesy 
was aimed at or was employed naturally by persons who 
were used to be more gravely polite. Paul was of the last 
class : he never speaks of Priscilla or of Silas, but of Prisca 
and Silvanus. Lydia was not the name by which he would 
speak of this lady in writing to the Church of Philippi. She 
is either Euodia or Syntyche of Phil. IV. 2, we know 
not which. 3 

not as yet solved. Probably it springs from popular speech mixing the words 
for " well " and " spring". In modern Greek miydltt is a well. 

1 John IV. 27, AaA.et /*era yvvaiicds : SO in Acts XVI. 13, eAaAov^ev rcus yvyai^lv. 

2 Mnason was the authority for the episodes of ^Eneas and Dorkas : hence 
his place in this history. Luke thus introduces in his own way an important 
authority. 

3 We might perhaps suppose that Paul would name her first, because she 
was the earliest Christian ; but there may be a lesson and a hint here conveyed 
by naming her last. Syntyche is a name known in Lydia and the Phrygian 
borderland. The matter remains uncertain ; but something may yet be 
found to determine our opinion. 



310 XXII. Analogies and 

In the immediate sequel of the narrative regarding Paul's 
fortunes at Philippi, there occurs an equally clear parallel to 
the life of the Saviour. There are two remarkable passages 
in the early part of Mark's Gospel, I. 34 and in. 12. " He 
suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him " ; 
and " The unclean spirits, whensoever they beheld Him, fell 
down before Him, saying ' Thou art the Son of God ' ; and 
He charged them much that they should not make Him 
known ". 

These two incidents cause difficulty in some ways owing 
to their unusual character. In other places Jesus does not 
avoid coming in contact with demoniacs. He appears also 
in Luke IV. 33, 41, to forbid the demons to express their 
recognition of Him and respect for Him. Yet He openly 
confers such power on others, and speaks about it. So in 
Matthew VIII. 4, He charges the leper who was healed to tell 
no man; but elsewhere, e.g. Matthew XI. 5, He appeals to 
such cures as publicly known. 

Why does He act thus in these cases ? There must be 
some reason for the difference of action at different stages 
of His career. The two incidents are mentioned only 
by Mark and Luke. Matthew, though he made so 
much use of Mark, omits those two passages ; perhaps he 
observed the difference of the Saviour's attitude in these 
from other places. They all left out a great deal, and re 
corded (as John expressly says, XXI. 25) what seemed to 
them most characteristic of His life, and most instructive, or 
most easily comprehended by the public. We cannot say 
confidently ; but for one reason or another Matthew omitted 
those two incidents, which are so striking in their diversity 
from the rest of the Gospel record, and on that account 
all the more valuable to us as revealing a certain side 
of Christ's action, less common but still a present force in 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 311 

His life and thought. He did at times forbid the evil spirits, 
who always seemed to recognize and shrink before Him, 
from giving public expression to their knowledge. 

Similarly at Philippi Paul felt much troubled by the 
slave-girl, who followed him, calling out that he and his com 
panions were slaves and servants of the Most High God, 
and preachers of the Way of Salvation. He was annoyed 
at this public and oft-repeated recognition. He knew how 
it was caused, and he ordered the spirit that possessed the 
girl to leave her. She at once lost her sensitiveness of tem 
perament, and her power of sympathetic comprehension of 
the nature of Paul and of all those with whom she had to 
deal professionally ; and she could no longer produce any 
gain for her owners. 

The analogy here to the passages just quoted from Mark 
is evident. We notice also that this case differs from the 
usual practice of Paul and of the Apostles (Acts vm. 7 
and XIX. 1 2). In this case alone he is said to have forbidden 
the recognition of his character ; but we may fairly assume 
that such recognition was a common and even a regular 
feature : it is implied as a usual accompaniment by the lan 
guage of Acts XIX. 1 5 : " The evil spirit retorted on them 
' Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye ? '" * 

An explanation has been suggested in Chap. X. of the 
reason for Paul's action in this case : the public of Philippi 
would regard the words of the slave-girl, herself a servant 
of magic, as indicating her recognition that Paul was a 
magician, greater and stronger than herself, but still a 
magician. Paul was at the beginning of his career in a new 
city and a new country ; and he wished to ward off this real 

1 In this passage the power of the mere Name of Jesus is assumed to be 
already familiar to the public, and the knowledge is derived rather from 
general practice than from that of Paul alone, 



312 XX I L Analogies and 

danger at the moment. Permanently it could not be 
avoided : it was always a trouble and a hindrance and a 
scandal among the ignorant mob and even among the more 
educated, as has been stated already. 

There is no reason to think that this episode in Paul's 
career was introduced for the sake merely of bringing out 
the analogy between his action and the Saviour's. It was 
recorded by Luke for the reason just stated ; but certainly 
Luke loved to dwell on such analogies as they arose 
spontaneously and unforced amid the adventurous career of 
his hero, the great Apostle. 

A similar analogy occurs in the story of the shipwreck, 
Acts XXVII. Paul suggests to the whole company to take 
food, in order to strengthen themselves for the escape from 
the ship. This was a wise and a necessary act. It was 
forced on Paul by the situation ; yet he was the only one 
that preserved sufficient coolness and courage to think of 
preparing for the immediate future. 

In this action, rising so naturally out of the circumstances, 
the analogy springs to light. Paul standing among the 
great multitude, almost all pagans, treated the meal as if it 
were the celebration* of the Eucharist. He took the bread 
and gave thanks, and brake it. Compare Luke XXII. 19, 
where the succession of verbs is the same. 

In later time the same feeling is observed. The example 
of Poly carp's death has been quoted above. An instructive 
example is the following, derived from epigraphic discovery. 

It is an interesting remark of Monsieur S. Reinach that the 
action of Avircius, the Phrygian bishop of the second cen 
tury, who travelled through the Christian world, " holding 
Paul in his hands," was like the conduct of the Ethiopian 
eunuch, who read the prophet Isaiah as he rode in his car. 
I have always understood the epitaph in the sense that the 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. 313 

bishop carried in his hands his own copy of the letters of 
Paul, and in my translation I tried to bring this out clearly ; 
but the analogy with Acts vill. 27-8 escaped me. 1 

If this hypothesis, that Avircius Marcellus, composing 
about A.D. 1 90 the epitaph for his own grave according to the 
Phrygian custom, had in mind the incident of the Ethiopian 
reading as he travelled the book of the prophet Isaiah, be 
accepted and it seems to me convincing, as we learned 
that it seemed to Monsignor Duchesne (when it was stated 
at the Academy of Inscriptions in Paris in July, IQI4) 2 
then some interesting inferences follow from it. 

(i) Avircius Marcellus probably travelled in the same 
fashion as the Ethiopian in his car. This had not previously 
occurred to me ; but it is evidently necessary. The Bishop 
did not travel on foot, visiting all the Churches from Rome 
to the Euphrates and beyond it. Time and strength do 
not allow that an ecclesiastic whose proper sphere of work 
lay in the Pentapolis of Phrygia should expend his energy 
in such kind of work. He was sent on from congregation to 
congregation, as a rule, in a car (according to the suggestion 
made above with regard to Paul in the Galatian regions). 3 
The kind of travelling car which was used in journeys 
along the postroads of the Danube provinces, and doubtless 
generally, is described by Professor M. Rostowzew of Petro- 
grad in a paper published in 191 1. 4 A Roman military 

1 The translation which is printed in my article on the subject in the 
" Expositor," 1889, p. 255, and repeated in Lady Ramsay's " Everyday Life 
in Turkey," p. 184, is : "I followed, holding Paul in my hands ". That 
meaning seems inevitable. 

2 I quote from a summary in the " Figaro," kindly sent me by a courteous 
correspondent whose name I could not decipher, in September, 1914. 

8 See p. 84 : also " Pauline and Other Studies," p. 266. 
4 " Ein Speculator auf der Reise," in " Mitt. Arch. Inst. Rom.," 1911, p. 
268 ff. This relief is in the Museum at Belgrad : the inscription is in Dessau's 



314 XXIL Analogies and 

courier 1 is shown on his tombstone riding in a car along a 
road, as he had travelled in life. The two-horse car is in 
rapid motion ; a third horse is loosely harnessed on the near 
(left) side ; and all are galloping. There are two travellers 
in the car, doubtless the courier and his personal attendant 
slave. The courier, though a legionary soldier, is unarmed ; 
his duty was to travel, and to traverse rapidly long distances 
in official service at the order of the governor of the pro 
vince ; and arms would have been only an incumbrance in 
such duties. 

According to the legend, which is quite untrustworthy as 
historical evidence, being composed not earlier than the end 
of the fourth or during the fifth century, Avircius travelled 
with one personal attendant, a slave no doubt ; and possibly 
this detail may be part of a true tradition. More probably, 
however, it is merely suggested by the ordinary custom : 
people who were not wealthy regularly travelled in that way 
with an attendant slave. 

On this sort of car the attendant sat behind. We are 
not informed whether the Ethiopian, as a wealthy man with 
many attendants, had a more luxurious conveyance. In 
any case there was room for Philip to sit in'the car with him, 
and to speak as they travelled. 2 It is to be noticed that in 
the three reliefs where the attendant sits behind, he is re 
presented as looking towards the rear (in the same fashion 

" Inscr. Lat. Select.," 2378. Two similar scenes on Gallic tombstones may 
be found in Daremberg and Saglio, " Diet, des Antiq.," i. p. 928, no. 1197, 
and in. p. 862, no. 5939. 

1 The nearest equivalent for "speculator" would probably be "gen 
darme " ; but no term is exact : see p. 317. 

2 In Daremberg and Saglio, on the same page as above quoted, the follow 
ing figure shows a car of similar, but more elaborate, character with two 
people sitting side by side : the travellers are represented in a higher position 
than the driver, who sits on the front of the car with his feet on the pole, 




VIK 



to tfce 






Fulfilment of Prophecy. 




I BLASSIVS JSMGELL10 

SPECVLLEGVilClVlX'T 
ANN XXXV 



FIG. 7. A Roman Courier travelling with his servant (Belgrad). 



3i6 XXII. Analogies and 

as on the back seat of a modern dogcart) ; and his seat 
seems to be only a bundle of baggage. 

The courier's horses are represented galloping. In the 
other reliefs the progress is quieter. We have to remember 
that the courier was bound to travel faster. In my calcula 
tions with regard to rates of travel, 1 I have supposed that 
ordinary travellers went regularly 25 miles a day, and 
couriers at double that rate ; and that the stages and equip 
ment of travel were arranged accordingly. Foot travellers 
on a journey did between 16 and 17 miles per day. These 
rates are very slow in comparison with what FriedlUnder 
and other German scholars suppose ; but they have done 
their travelling in the study ; and I have quoted considerable 
evidence to prove that these rates are likely to be correct, 
and arc not too slow for truth. Mr. Hunter, in the last 
number of the "Journal of Roman Studies," 1913, has an 
article on Cicero's journeys in Asia Minor, based on the 
Roman governor's letters and dates: and he finds that 
Cicero travelled 25 miles a day until he reached the army, 
but very much slower after that ; yet Cicero was hurrying 
to his urmy. 

(2) Not merely was Avircius, in composing his epitaph, 
mindful of the scene in Acts VIII. : he could feel confident 
that his Christian readers (to whom the symbolism and the 
cryptic language used in his epitaph were intelligible) would 
be able to understand the allusion. He travelled and 
read Paul, as the Ethiopian travelled and read Isaiah. The 
incidents described in the Acts were therefore familiar to 
the congregations of the Phrygian Pentapolis in the latter 
part of the second century (which might be taken for granted, 
though a confirmation is always welcome). See also p. 84. 

* " Rotdn and Travel In New Tcntamem Times," in Haitingt' " Dictionary 
of the Bible," Vol. V. 



Fulfilment of Prophecy. $ \ 7 



(3) In these two episodes all the details are different, and 
characteristic of different countries and occasions. Yet 
the general analogy is unmistakable to the unprejudiced and 

unbiassed reader. 

(4) It will illustrate what has been laid above, especially 
in Chapter VI., if we describe the character of this scene 
more fully. The speculatores were part of the officium or 
special service-staff of the governor of a province, One of 
their principal duties wan to act as gendarmerie or armed 
police. They officiated as executioners, and Domaazewski 
seems to regard this perhaps in father too narrow a view 
as their most characteristic duty, for he calls them 
" gcrichtsofficialen " : it is, however, often a not unfair 
rendering of the conception that has been entertained in 
central and south-eastern Europe regarding gendarmerie, 
and a not unjust expression of the work of the modern 
gendarmerie in the Balkan provinces, to call them torturers 
and executioners. The speculatores also acted as couriers, 
but perhaps only in urgent business, as when Caligula an 
nounced his victories to Rome (Suetonius Calig. 44), and 
when the Syrian armies 1 oath to Vespasian was* reported to 
Vitelliui (Tacitus, " Hist." li. 73). They were all legionary 
soldiers (ten were in each legion) ; and in a very rough way 
they may be said to correspond to a humble grade, but not 
the lowest grade, of non-commissioned officers in our army 
so far as mere rank is concerned, though the duties are 
wholly different. 

Even on their police-duties they had often to travel from 
the governor's headquarters to outlying parts of the pro 
vince. Both on such missions, and when acting as couriers, 
they were of course empowered to use the Imperial postal 
service, and the cars in which they are represented as 
travelling belonged to that equipment, and in one case are 



3 1 8 XXII. Analogies and Fulfilment of Prophecy. 

represented as bearing the Imperial insignia ; these insignia 
(heads of Emperors) are usually omitted, as the reliefs are 
on too small a scale to show such slight details. 

Their conduct to the provincials is described as generally 
tyrannical, unjust, greedy and domineering. A stick is the 
mark of their rank, but it seems on the rude reliefs (in 
which it is regularly carried by the attendant, as a magi 
strate's fasces by his attendant lictors) to be more like 
a heavy spear or even an axe. They had the right to 
commandeer on the public service any of the posses 
sions, even the ploughing cattle, of the peasantry, and 
complaints are rife in the inscriptions that their requisi 
tions were often illegal : we learn of these complaints, 
because they were inscribed by cultivators of Imperial estates 
who had brought their case successfully to the knowledge 
of their Imperial Lord and God ; had their prayer to him 
been unsuccessful, it would not have been permitted to be 
inscribed. Such was the Imperial "Salvation" (described 1 
from another point of view in Ch. XV.). 

1 On the speculators see also Domaszewski, Rangordnung d. roem, 
Heeres, pp. 32 and 63 f., and in Rhein. Museum, XLV. pp. 209 f. ; Mommsen, 
Strafrecht, p. 924 f. ; Marquardt, Handbuch d. roem. Staatsverw., i. p. 560, 
n. p. 547 f. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

"YOUR POETS HAVE SAID" 

AT every point in the early history of Christianity we find 
that the relation to the Roman autocracy has to be taken 
into account as a factor in the problem. The Church and 
the Empire, the Imperial and the Christian "Salvation," 
stood over against one another. The Empire was striving 
to solve the same problems that the new religion was at 
tacking. Its spirit, on the whole, setting aside some de 
generate Emperors, was good. Its aims were noble. It 
sought to benefit the whole population of the world, and to 
raise the provincials and the outer people on the fringe of 
the Empire to the level of the Roman civilization. It was 
satisfied that Roman culture was perfect, that the civilized 
world was the Roman world, and that the best thing for 
every nation was that it should be initiated into the Roman 
culture, and brought into the Empire as soon as it was 
worthy of that privilege. 

In Christian opinion Rome knew not that it was wretched 
and miserable and poor and blind and naked : it thought 
that it was rich and had need of nothing. 1 Rome flattered 
herself that she sat a Queen ; but her sins reached even unto 
heaven. 2 Her culture was vicious at the heart. The re 
ligion that she created to strengthen and maintain the 
Imperial patriotism was the worship of Satan, sitting in the 
temple of God, setting himself forth as God : 3 it deified the 

1 Rev. in. 17. 2 Rev. xvm. 7 and 5. 3 Rev. n. 13 ; 2 Thess, n. 4. 

(319) 



320 XXI II. " Your Poets have 



State and the Emperor as embodying the majesty of the 
State. 

Yet it is not enough to look at the Empire as painted by 
its enemy. We must look at it as it presented itself to the 
world. The Imperial " Salvation " was a great idea : it was 
a restraining power, 1 averting anarchy and bestowing on the 
nations a certain order and quiet, as Paul and Luke knew. 
Here we can only take the Imperial idea at its birth, and 
show how it appeared to those poets who saw its origin and 
knew by experience what it was doing for the " civilized 
world": they had "looked before and after" its birth. 
They did not know, or did not care that the paternal gov 
ernment of the Emperor was the antithesis of freedom, and 
must, as it developed, destroy liberty in the Roman world. 
We have seen in Chap. XV. something of that line of develop 
ment. 2 We now look for a moment at its beginnings. 

The first perception of what Virgil and Horace saw in 
the Roman Imperial idea was the opening of a new world 
to me. The expression of that idea in plain and sober 
prose in an inscription of Asia Minor about the time when 
Christ was born shows marvellously close analogy to the 
Christian ideas regarding the coming of Christ into the 
world. Some scholars, who apparently had never noticed 
the poetic expression in the great Augustan poets, were so 
struck with the statement in prose as to imagine that the 
language of the New Testament had been influenced by the 
words of an inscription of the year 9 B.C., and that the story 
of the Birth of Jesus was modelled on the pagan conception 
of the holiness of Augustus's birthday. 8 

1 2 Thess. n. 7. 2 See also Chap. xx. 

3 One inscription was in my mind while writing "The Church in the 
Roman Empire," after I had copied parts of it at Apameia in 1886 and 1887: 
another is quoted by Deissmann, " Bibelstudien," p. 277, with unjustifiable 
inferences. 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said:' 321 

The striking analogy in language arises from the exist 
ence of a general belief that only the coming of God into 
the world could save it. The fact that such a belief was 
generally entertained seemed to Paul to prove that the 
"fulness of the times had come," and that the world 
was now ripe for and expectant of a Saviour ; and he 
declared to men the true nature of the salvation which 
they were groping after. 1 This fact is important and arrest 
ing; but only a very prosaic mind could suppose that it 
either created or affected the Christian idea of a Saviour 
and of salvation. There was an analogy between the Im 
perial and the Christian conceptions of " Salvation," because 
the Empire was seeking some cure for the same evils that 
the new religion wished to heal ; but the analogy grew 
weaker as time passed and as the worse side of Imperialism 
became more pronounced. As Virgil saw it and described 
it, the Roman idea was capable of a higher future than it 
ever attained. 

The Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, with its hope and confident 
prophecy of a better age which had already surely begun, 
was only one indication, though the most striking one, of 
a dawning hope, which was spreading in the Roman Empire. 
This poem was also the first clear and articulate expression 
of that hope ; and indubitably exercised considerable in 
fluence in giving form and definition to the vague emotion 
which was stirring in the popular mind, felt by many, and 
expressed by one great writer. 

The Fourth Eclogue had its origin in an interesting 
episode of literary history ; and, if it were regarded solely 
from the literary point of view, it might almost be called 
an occasional poem. But what might have been a mere 

1 " The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 94, 285. 

21 



XXlfl. " Your Poets have Said? 



occasional poem in the hands of a lesser poet, became, in 
passing through the mind of Virgil, a work of far wider and 
higher character. It is, however, essential to a right com 
prehension of this Eclogue that it should be studied in its 
origin. Only in this way can its relation to the popular 
conceptions of the time be understood. 

It was through the relations between Virgil and Horace, 
so friendly and for the latter so important, that this poem 
of Virgil's took its actual form. 1 Horace was an officer, 
who served in the army of Brutus and Cassius, and took 
part in the disastrous battle of Philippi, which wrecked the 
aristocratic and republican party, late in the year 42 B.C. 
He fled from the rout of Philippi and returned to Italy, 
where he found that the landed property, which he had 
inherited from his father, had been confiscated and assigned 
(like many other Italian estates) to the soldiers of the 
victorious armies. He came to Rome, where, as he says, 

Bereft of property, impaired in purse, 
Sheer penury drove me into scribbling verse. 

The metropolis was the only place which offered at that 
time a career to a young man conscious of literary power, 
and compelled to seek a living thereby. Horace had now 
neither property nor patron nor influential friend. As an 
adherent of the defeated and unpopular party, the young 
poet's career was doubly difficult ; and we could not sup 
pose that his republican and aristocratic sentiments were 
blazoned by him in Rome when he settled there. That 
these sentiments were now concealed by him is proved by 
the fact that he found employment as a clerk in one of the 



1 The thought must have been simmering in the mind of Virgil, but the 
form was suggested as a reply to a poem of Horace. My own personal view 
is that the two poems inaugurated the personal relations and intimate friend 
ship of the two poets. 



XXII I. " Your Poets have Said" 323 

government offices : a pronounced aristocrat would not have 
received, and would hardly have asked, such a position. 

Horace's mind was not that of a zealot or an extremist. 
He had fought for the side which he believed in, and he ac 
cepted the result of the fight. The question for him was 
settled, and he now accommodated himself unreservedly to 
the new situation. Moreover, he had unquestionably lost his 
faith in his former party, from causes at which the historian 
can guess without any difficulty. He recognized that it 
was incapable and dead, and that Rome had nothing to 
hope from it, even if it had been successful in the fight. 
Every reader of his works knows that such was his feeling, 
and such was the widespread feeling of the Roman world. 
Men recognized that the degeneration of the Mediterranean 
world had proceeded one stage further, and that the repub 
lican party had failed decisively to govern the Empire 
which it had conquered. Horace represents the general 
opinion of the pagan world. He stands in the world of 
men, not above it (as Virgil did) ; he expresses the senti 
ments of the world from a sane, common-sense point of 
view ; and, as he emerged from penury, he attained a high 
level of wisdom, propriety, and self-respect in his outlook on 
the world, and a singularly lofty level of easy and graceful 
yet dignified expression of popular philosophy and worldly 
experience. From him we gather the best side of popular 
sentiment and popular philosophy, as they were trained in 
the stern school of life. 

In one of Horace's poems the popular estimate of the 
situation in which the Roman world was placed found full 
expression. This poem is the Sixteenth Epode, which 
stands at the end of the first period of his literary activity 
and prepares the entrance on his second period. In the 
first period he was the hungry wolf, the impoverished and 



324 XXIII. " Your Poets have Saut." 

disappointed writer, who had felt the injustice of the world 
and was embittered by his experience. In the Sixteenth 
Epode he pours forth unreservedly the disappointment 
which he and the people generally felt about the existing 
situation of the Roman world. The long civil wars had 
sickened and disgusted the popular mind, except in so far 
as they had brutalized it into positive enjoyment of the 
apparently endless series of intestine wars and massacres, 
each more bloody than its predecessor. The Roman Empire 
and Roman society were drifting steadily towards ruin, 
and their motion onwards towards the abyss was becoming 
ever more rapid. 

This consciousness of degeneration and approaching ruin 
generally turned to utter despair. No hope was apparent. 
The Roman people had outgrown its old religion, and had 
found no new religion to take its place. Hence there was no 
religious consolation for it, no God to whom it could look 
for help and salvation. To which of the deities should the 
Roman people turn : what prayer would avail to importune 
Vesta and the old Divine patrons of the State and compel 
them to help the city and the Empire in their need ? So 
asks Horace in the second Ode of the first book, a poem 
written at a considerably later date, when he thought he 
had found a new god and a present help. But in the first 
period of his literary work he had no hope. He had not 
even a political party to which he could join himself and 
for which he could fight. He had lost his old faith in the 
Republican party, and found nothing to replace it; the 
mind of man craved for the help of God, and there was no 
God known to it. So Horace consoled himself by an ex 
cursion into the land of fancy and of dreams. The Ro 
mans, as he says, had now only one chance left. They 
could abandon their country, and go far away from Italy 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 325 

into the Western Ocean, to find that happy land of which 
legend tells and poets sing, where the Golden Age of quiet 
and peace and plenty is always present, because there the 
degeneration which had affected the whole Mediterranean 
world had never begun. And so the poet calls upon all 
true men and good patriots to abandon their country, to 
desert Rome, and sail far away into the Atlantic Ocean, 
seeking a " new world to redress the balance of the old 
world," to dwell in 

The rich and happy isles 

Where Ceres year by year crowns all the untill'd land with sheaves, 
And the vine with purple clusters droops, unpruned of all her leaves ; 
Where the olive buds and burgeons, to its promise ne'er untrue, 
And the russet fig adorns the tree, that graffshoot never knew; 
Where honey from the hollow oak doth ooze, and crystal rills 
Come dancing down with tinkling feet from the sky-dividing hills ; 
There to the pails the she-goats come, without a master's word, 
And home with udders brimming broad returns the friendly herd. 

For Jupiter, when he with brass the Golden Age alloy'd, 
That blissful region set apart by the good to be enjoy'd ; 
With brass and then with iron he the ages sear'd, but ye, 
Good men and true, to that bright home arise and follow me I l 

Evidently, this fanciful description of the Golden Age 
in the Western Isles, with the advice of the Romans to 
take refuge there, does not express any serious belief. 
Horace and the popular mind generally had no cure to sug 
gest for the malady of the State. To them the world of 
reality had sunk beyond salvation, and human life had de 
generated into a riot of bloodshed and strife. Only in 
dreamland was there any refuge from the evils of actual 
life. Horace is here only " the idle singer of an empty 
day," singing in the brief interval between the last mas 
sacre and the next one. There is no faith, no belief, no 
reality in the poem, because the poet had no religion, while 

1 From the translation of Sir Theodore Martin. 



326 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 

the popular mind knew in a vague fashion that God alone 
could help now. Despair was seeking a moment's oblivion, 
and cheating itself with the false words of hope in this 
poem. 

But, while there is no reality in the proposed remedy, no 
one can doubt, or has ever doubted, that the poem is politi 
cal, and touches on the real facts of the Roman situation. 
This was what the people thought and felt and vaguely 
said. The old Rome could not stand : the Republican and 
aristocratic party, which had fought to maintain the old 
Rome, was mistaken and practically dead, and its policy 
had utterly failed. The poem is really the expression of 
a despairing acquiescence in the tyranny of the triumvirate 
and the autocracy of the coming Empire. This was the re 
luctant and hopeless view with which Tacitus a century 
later (and many for whom Tacitus speaks) regarded the 
government of the Flavian Emperors : a republican con 
stitution, though the best, was too good for the Roman 
people, and autocracy was the only government that was 
practically possible. And, after a similar fashion, in the 
Sixteenth Epode Horace abandoned definitely his Re 
publican views, to dream about freedom, and to acquiesce 
in the slavery of Imperialism. 

For our purpose the most important feature of the Epode 
is its expression of the general opinion that no salvation 
could be hoped for except through some superhuman aid. 
Man, left to himself, had degenerated and must degenerate. 
The almost universal pagan view was to that effect ; and 
history confirms it. Paul makes this view the starting- 
point for his philosophy of history : God alone can give 
help and preserve true civilization. In this the Apostle of 
the Gentiles agrees with the almost universal Gentile 
thought. What he adds to it is the evangel of the Way> 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said? 327 

revealed first to the Hebrews imperfectly, now perfectly to 
all men. 

The opinion of Virgil stands by itself, practically solitary 
in pagan literature. In his mind there sprang into exist 
ence a new idea, the hope of an immediate and present 
salvation through a new-born child. 

It may be assumed, for the moment, that chronology and 
general conditions permit the supposition that Virgil's poem 
started from and gave the answer to Horace's. 1 The late 
Professor Kiessling, of Berlin, pointed out that Virgil in 
this poem caught up and echoed two of Horace's phrases. 
It seems beyond doubt that 

nee magnos metuent armenta leones 

is not independent of Horace's 

nee ravos timeant armenta leones ; 
and similarly that Virgil's 

ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capellae ubera 

has some connexion with Horace's 

illic iniussae venient ad mulctra capellae 
refertque tenta grex amicus ubera. 

Two contemporary poets, known to one another, each 
(as we may be certain) familiar with the other's work, do 
not write in this way by accident. The resemblance is 
intentional, and was regarded, both by themselves and by 
the world, as a compliment paid by the imitator to the 
imitated. The question might be raised, however, which 
was the imitator ; and there is a certain probability, a 
priori, that Horace, as the younger and less distinguished, 
was the imitator ; for we know of other places in which 
beyond doubt that was the case. But in this instance 
Kiessling concludes that Virgil was the one who echoed 

1 The Book of Epodes was not published collectively till 30 B.C. ; but it is 
a well-established fact that important single poems like this were known. 



328 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 

Horace ; and his reasoning from internal evidence seems 
conclusive. 1 Moreover, Virgil's poem was written in the 
year 40 B.C., and (as is universally accepted) in the 
latter part of the year, whereas Horace's poem, which arose 
through the horrors and suffering of the bloody Perusian 
war and expresses the feeling of repulsion excited thereby 
in the poet's mind, can hardly be placed later than the early 
months of 40 or the end of 41 B.C. The imitation is a 
graceful compliment paid by the older and more famous 
poet to his young and as yet little known contemporary. 
We can appreciate how much the compliment meant to 
Horace ; and we can understand how the language of his 
Ode addressed to Virgil is not hyperbolic, but perfectly 
sincere and well deserved. It was the kindness and courtesy 
which Virgil showed to Horace when he was still struggling 
with poverty that endeared him to the latter ; and this 
spirit of kindness and courtesy prompted Virgil to pay this 
graceful compliment, which may be regarded as the begin 
ning of the friendship between the two poets. That friend 
ship opened the door of society to Horace. After a time 
Virgil introduced him to Maecenas, who became his patron 
and intimate friend. In the sunshine of moderate pros 
perity his character expanded and blossomed into the genial 
temper of his maturer work. A deep gulf, caused by a pro 
found difference of tone and spirit, separates that maturer 
work from his earliest work. While he was struggling amid 
hard fortune, he was bitter and narrow. What he quickly 
became after he met Virgil, the world knows and appre 
ciates. 

Now, looking at the Fourth Eclogue from this point of 
view, let us place it beside the Sixteenth Epode, and see 

1 I write without recurring to books ; and it is many years since I read 
Kiessling, but I think the above statement is correct. 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 329 

what meaning it gathers from the collocation. Horace had 
said that no hope for the Romans existed, except that they 
should abandon Italy and Rome, to seek a happy life in the 
islands of the Western Ocean. Virgil replies that the 
better age of which Horace dreams is here in Italy present 
with them, now just beginning. The very words in which 
Horace had described a fabulous island and a legendary 
Golden Age are applied by Virgil to describe Italy as it 
will soon be, as the child already born in Italy will see it. 
What are mere fanciful marvels when told about an un 
known isle of the Ocean become real in the imaginative 
vision of Virgil, for they are being now realized in Italy 
under the new order, through the power of the peace and 
good order and wise administration, settled government and 
security of property, which have been established in the 
country. 

Reading the two poems together, and remembering that 
they were written within a year of one another by two 
friends, one cannot doubt that they were companion and 
contrasted pieces, responding one to the other. They say 
to Rome respectively : "Seek your happiness by fleeing far 
into the Western Ocean " ; and " Your happiness is now 
being wrought out before your eyes in Italy ". A glance 
suffices to show the intention to anyone who has eyes 
to see. But in literary criticism inability to see more than 
one has been taught and habituated to see is a striking 
characteristic of some very learned scholars. Wagner, the 
learned and devoted and dull pupil of a great master, who 
can understand only what his teacher put before him and 
into him, is regarded by Goethe as a typical German pro 
fessor, but he has analogies among us. 

Virgil is the prophet of the new age of Italy. He was 
always thinking about Italy and imagining what it might 



330 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 

be made by the application of prudence, forethought, and 
true knowledge. The subject of the Georgics is to describe 
what Italy might become, if agriculture were wisely and 
thoroughly carried out. "You have all you need in Italy, 
the most beautiful and the best country of the whole world, 
if you will only use it right." The intention of the poem 
is to force this lesson home to the Roman mind. 

The practical and skilful administration of Augustus 
appealed to Virgil. He saw that Augustus had wise plans, 
and skill to carry them into effect. He was a convinced 
adherent and apostle of the Emperor. The union of science 
and government had made the Mediterranean world fertile. 
The science had originally been supplied by the theocratic 
order, when the accumulated experience and growing wisdom 
of a people was concentrated at the hieron of each district, 
where the Goddess educated and guided, nourished and 
tended her people. The union of science and government 
was now beginning to make Italy perfect under the new 
Empire ; that union would soon destroy every noxious plant 
and animal, produce all useful things in abundance from 
the soil, tame all that was wild, improve nature to an infi 
nite degree, make the thorn-tree laugh and bloom with 
flowers : it would naturalize in Italy all that was best in 
foreign lands, and thus render Italy independent of imports, 
and so perfectly self-sufficient that navigation would be 
unnecessary. This was the imperial salvation, on which see 
Chap. xv. 

In this last detail we have one of those startingly modern 
touches, which so often surprise us in Roman literature. 
Virgil would have no free trade. The ideal he aimed at 
was that Italy should depend on itself alone, and not on 
sea borne products. His ideal is here different from and 
narrower than the Imperial. He does not think of binding 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 331 

the lands of the whole Empire into a unity, as the Emperors 
desired ; he wishes only that Italy should learn to produce 
everything for itself and that thereafter the "estranging 
sea " should once more separate the lands, and navigation 
should cease. He probably had not thought of all that 
was implied in this ideal ; but the modern form would be 
that the single Empire should be self-sufficient within its 
own limits, and not that Italy alone should produce all that 
it needs. 

That the Fourth Eclogue stands in close relation with 
the new Empire is obvious. It is the wise new system of 
rule that is to produce these blessed results for Italy. But 
there is as yet no trace of the autocratic idea in the poem. 
Augustus is neither named nor directly alluded to. 

Virgil thinks of the continuance, in an improved form, 
of the old Roman system of constitutional government by 
magistrates (honores), of the political career open to all 
Romans in the old way, and of the military training which 
was the foundation and an essential part of the Roman 
education. War must continue for a time, in order that 
the young Roman may be educated in the true Roman 
fashion. But it will be foreign war, carried on in the East ; 
new Argonauts must explore and conquer and bring under 
the Roman peace the distant Orient ; a new Achilles was 
sailing for another Troy in the person of Antony, who was 
charged with the government of the whole East and the 
conduct of the Parthian war. The triumvirate, Antony, 
Augustus, 1 and Lepidus, was not in appearance an autocracy ; 
it was, in name at least, a board of three commissioners 

1 For convenient reference we may use by anticipation this title, which 
was not bestowed till January, 27 B.C. ; it marked a great step forward in 
the personal and autocratic rule of Augustus, and a noteworthy step in the 
way towards his deification. 



332 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 

for establishing the Republic, professedly a temporary ex 
pedient to cure the troubles of the state. To speak or 
think of a single Emperor, or to connect the salvation of 
Rome with any single human being, was treason to the 
triumvirate, and was specially out of place at the moment 
when Virgil was writing, shortly after the peace of 
Brundisium had established concord and equality between 
Antony and Augustus. In the Eclogue a more obvious 
allusion is, in fact, made to Antony than to Augustus, for 
every one at the time recognized Antony in the new Achilles 
who was starting for an eastern war : the Provinces east 
of the Adriatic Sea were under Antony's charge, and a 
Parthian war was in progress. 

But, while Antony is more directly alluded to, the 
thought that incites the poem and warms the poet's 
enthusiasm is the wise and prudent administration of Italy 
by Augustus. That is the real subject. The enlightened 
forethought of Augustus and Agrippa made their rule the 
beginning of a new era in Italy ; and Virgil looked forward 
to a continuous growth in the country. 

Still less is there any dynastic thought in the Fourth 
Eclogue. The idea that an expected son of Augustus, or 
the son of any other distinguished Roman, is alluded to, is 
anachronistic and simply impossible. Every attempt to 
identify the young child mentioned in the poem with any 
actual child born or to be born has been an utter failure, 
and takes this Eclogue from a false point of view. 

Least of all is there any idea in the Fourth Eclogue of 
deifying either Augustus personally or a son of his who 
might hereafter be born. 1 That view is not merely untrue 

1 The idea of some literary critics is that the poem celebrates the birth 
of an expected son, who unfortunately for the poet turned out to be a 
daughter. This idea is really too absurd for anyone but a confirmed 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said." 333 



to the existing facts of the conjoint government and the 
union of Augustus and Antony ; it misunderstands and 
misrepresents the development of the Imperial idea and the 
growth (or growing perversion) of thought in Rome ; it 
places Virgil on a plane of feeling far too low ; it is a hope 
less anachronism in every point of view. Schaper, in a 
very interesting paper, pointed out many years ago that 
the deification of Augustus and his son and his dynasty was 
wholly inconsistent with the composition of the Eclogue 
so early as 40 B.C. The paper was convincing and, in a 
certain way, conclusive. But instead of drawing the in 
ference that the deification of the dynasty is a false idea, 
read into the poem under the prejudice caused by the 
development of history in the years following after A.D. 40, 
he propounded the impossible theory that the poem was 
composed at a later time, viz. in the period ending June, 
23 B.C., when Augustus was governing no longer as triumvir, 
but as consul, and was practically sole master of the Empire, 
though maintaining the Republican forms and the nominal 
election of another consul along with himself. To support 
this theory, Schaper eliminated the illusion to Polio's 
consulship, which fixes the composition to the year 40 B.C., 
reading Solis instead of Polio. 1 To make this theory 
possible chronologically, and reconcile it with the date of 
publication of the Eclogues not very long after 40 B.C., 
Schaper supposed that the Fourth Eclogue was composed 
at a later date, and inserted in a revised second edition of 
the Eclogues. 2 

literary and " Higher " Critic. A poet does not work so ; even a " poet 
laureate" could not work under such conditions. 

1 As he pointed out, the correct spelling of the name was Polio, and not 
Pollio. 

2 Two others, the Sixth and the Tenth, were also supposed by Schaper 
to have been composed for the enlarged second edition. 



334 XXI I L " Your Poets have 



These impossible buttresses of Schaper's theory were uni 
versally rejected ; the faults of his paper distracted atten 
tion from its real merits ; and the perfectly unanswerable 
argument from which he started was tacitly set aside, as if 
it shared in the error of the theory which he had superim 
posed upon it. 

The truth is that the poem belongs to an earlier stage of 
thought than the worship of Augustus ; and the Divine 
idea in it was still so vague that it was readily capable of 
being developed in accordance with subsequent history. 
But it was equally capable of being developed in a different 
direction and in a nobler and truer style. Had the Pauline 
idea of Christianity as the religion of the Empire been suc 
cessfully wrought out during the first century, the Fourth 
Eclogue would have seemed equally suitable to that line of 
development. The later popular instinct, which regarded 
the poem as a prophecy of the birth of Christ, was not 
wholly incorrect. The poem contained an inchoate idea, 
unformed and vague, enshrining and embodying that uni 
versal need which indicated " the fulness of time " and the 
world's craving for a Saviour. The Roman world needed 
a Saviour ; it was conscious of its need ; it was convinced 
that only Divine intervention could furnish a Saviour for it. 
Paul was fully aware that this universal craving and unrest 
and pain existed in the Roman world ; and he saw therein 
the presage of the birth of Divine truth. "The whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now." 

The political side of the Fourth Eclogue is emphatically 
marked, and was indubitably recognized universally at the 
time. It suited the situation, and it glorified the wise 
policy of Augustus. We are not blind to it. But the 
significance of this aspect should not blind us to the fact 
that this alone is quite insufficient to explain the genesis and 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 335 

the full meaning of the poem. Professor Mayor 1 here seems 
to us to be in the right, as has been argued from additional 
reasons in the later part of this paper. Virgil had learned 
something from Hebrew poetry and especially from Isaiah. 

The Hebrew idea of a growth towards a happier future 
through the birth of a Divine child was simmering in his 
mind, when Horace's despairing poem declaring that no 
happiness for Rome could be found except in voluntary 
exile to the Islands of the West caught his attention, and 
drew from him a reply. As a convinced and enthusiastic 
supporter of Augustus, he declared that peace and happiness 
was being realized in Italy by the wise rule of the triumvir. 
With this he interwove the almost universal thought of his 
contemporaries that Divine aid alone could afford real and 
permanent improvement in the condition of the state ; and 
this Divine aid expressed itself to him in the form that he 
had caught from the Hebrew poetry. 

Whom then did he think of as the child ? He must have 
had some idea in his mind. There can be no doubt as to 
this, if we simply look at the genesis of the Imperial cult. 
The power of that cult lay in a certain real fact, the majesty 
and dignity and character of the Roman people, which was 
assumed to be represented by the Emperor as the head of 
the state. Augustus permitted worship of himself only in 
the form of a cult of" Rome and Augustus ". To a Roman 
like Virgil in 40 B.C., the Divine child, who embodies the 
future of Rome, who has to go through the education of 
war and magistracies (as the poem declares), could only be 
"Rome," i.e. the Roman people collectively, the new gen 
eration of Rome, born under happier auspices and destined 
to glory and advancement in power and in happiness. As 

J See his paper in the "Expositor," April, 1907. 



336 XXIIL " Your Poets have Said" 

Virgil elsewhere apostrophizes the one Roman as typical of 
the race and its destiny, 1 and as Macaulay, imitating him, 
uses the same figurative speech, " Thine, Roman, is the 
pilum," to paint the Roman racial character, so here the 
Latin poet, with the Hebrew thought of a child in his mind, 
can describe the birth and infancy of the child as really 
taking place with the natural concomitants. 2 

There was more than this in Virgil's poem, more than 
he was fully conscious of; but this he had in his mind. He 
did not see, what we can now see, that there was placed 
before the Empire a dilemma and a necessity. It was a 
necessity that a new religion should arise for the consolida 
tion of the Empire. There was proposed for the Empire 
by Paul the new religion of Christ. The Emperors, in re 
fusing the proposal, were inevitably driven to lay stress 
more and more upon the Imperial religion and the Imperial 
God. It is not always fully realized that this cult was not 
very much insisted on until the reign of Domitian, under 
whom the opposition to Christianity was first developed 
fully to its logical consequences. Augustus, who instituted 
the Imperial cult as a support of the state, was always a 
little ashamed of it ; and his successors 3 had something of 
the same feeling, until Domitian began to take a real 
pleasure and pride in it. 

It seems to the present writer, as it does to Professor 
J. B. Mayor, 4 impossible to understand the Fourth Eclogue 
without the supposition that Virgil had experienced a certain 
influence from Hebrew poetry ; and other reasons for this 

1 In the famous line, often quoted, tu regere imperio populos, Romane 
memento. 

2 As in lines 60 f. 

3 It is difficult to make up one's mind whether Caligula did not regard it 
as all a joke, when he talked of his brother Jupiter. 

4 " Expositor," April, 1907. 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 337 

opinion besides those mentioned by Professor Mayor will 
be mentioned in the following pages. 

But, whereas Professor Mayor is inclined to reject the 
supposition that this influence came direct to Virgil from 
the works of Isaiah as translated (we must, of course, under 
stand a Greek, not a Latin, translation), and argues that 
the Roman poet knew no more of the Hebrew poet than 
what filtered through the poor medium of the Sibylline 
Books, I confess that this appears to me an inadequate 
hypothesis, and that there seems no difficulty to prevent 
us from believing Virgil to have been acquainted with a 
Greek translation of Isaiah. It is mentioned by ancient 
authorities that he had read widely in remote regions of 
philosophy ; and as Isaiah had certainly been translated 
into Greek, and as the lofty religious thought of the Jews 
had certainly exercised a strong influence over many 
Roman minds and over the popular imagination of the 
ancient Roman world, it seems quite a fair supposition that 
he had become acquainted with Isaiah in Greek. 

I shall not, however, enter on this question, except to 
remark that the influence on Virgil's metre in this poem 
(which will be pointed out in the sequel) seems inconsistent 
with the idea that he was indebted to the Sibylline verses 
alone. I am not concerned to deny or to affirm anything 
about his having seen the Sibylline poems ; but it seems 
quite safe to assert, in the first place, that no such common 
place lines as make up those poems could have any influence 
on Virgil's metrical form one might as soon imagine that 
Shelley was influenced in his metrical form by Shadwell or 
Pye ; and, in the second place, that only the original expres 
sion of the ideas in the suitable metrical form by a great 
poet could have determined Virgil to make this unique 
experiment in Latin metre an experiment which he never 

22 



338 XXI II. " Your Poets have Said." 

repeated or could have inspired him to express the antici 
pations of the champions of the New Empire in so Hebraic 
and un-Roman a form. 

We may assume all that Professor Mayor has so well said 
about the relation of Virgil's details and words to Isaiah. 
I shall add some remarks on the Hebrew and non-Roman 
character of the main subject and of the metre, and on the 
form in which Virgil develops an idea which was floating 
before the minds of many in Italy at the time. To show 
how naturally our results rise from the facts, I shall use the 
statement which I made on the subject many years ago to 
a meeting of the Franco-Scottish Society, only slightly 
modifying the form, but leaving the thoughts unchanged 

There are two facts which determine the evolution of 
this ideal picture in Virgil's poem. Virgil is perfectly 
sure that the glorified and idealized Italy of his vision is 
being realized in their own time and before their own eyes, 
and he connects that realization with a new-born child. 
These are two ideas to which no real parallel can be found 
in preceding Greek or Roman literature. The Better Age 
had been conceived by the Greeks as lying in the past, and 
the world's history as a progress towards decay. Even 
where a cycle of ages was spoken of by the Greek philoso 
phers, it was taken rather as a proof that no good thing 
could last, than as an encouragement to look forward to 
a better future. Moreover, Virgil's new age, though spoken 
of in his opening lines as a part of a recurring cycle, is not 
pictured before his view as evanescent ; it is coming, but 
its end is not seen and not thought of by him. 

How does Virgil arrive at his firm conviction that the 
best is last, and that the best is surely coming, nay that 
it now is ? We cannot regard it as arising entirely from 
his own inspiration, springing mature and full-grown, 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 339 

like Athena from the head of Zeus. Rather we must 
agree with Professor Mayor that we ought to trace the stages 
in its development to the perfect form which it has in this 
poem. 

Again, the association of a young child with this coming 
age is something entirely alien to Greek and Roman thought. 
It springs from a sense of a divine ^purpose, developing in 
the growth of the race and working itself out in the life 
of other new generations, a thought not in itself foreign 
to the philosophical speculation of Greece, but taking 
here a form so unusual that it imperatively demands 
our recognition and explanation. It was too delicate for 
the philosophers, though one finds it to a certain degree 
in the poets. Nowhere can we find any previous philosophy 
or religion that had grasped the thought firmly and unhesi 
tatingly, except among the Hebrew race. To the Hebrew 
prophets, and to them alone, the Better Age lay always 
in the future : 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made. 

The Hebrews always recognized that the divine purpose 
reserved for them a future better than the past, and they 
alone associated the coming of the Better Age with the birth 
of a child. We must, I think, look to the East and to 
Hebrew poetry for the germ from which Virgil's poem 
developed, though in the process of development nourish 
ment from many other sides determined its growth and 
affected its character. 

Looking at the poem from another point of view, we 
recognize that it is a metrical experiment, which Virgil 
tried in this one case and never repeated. Its metrical 
character seemed to him appropriate to his treatment of 
this one subject ; but he found no other subject which it 



340 XXI I L " Your Poets have Said" 

suited, and he considered that the true development of the 
heroic verse lay in another direction. 

Landor, in his criticisms on Catullus's twelfth ode, has 
the following remarks on the metrical character of this 
Eclogue. "The worst, but most admired, of Virgil's 
Eclogues, was composed to celebrate the birth of Pollio's 
son in his consulate. In this Eclogue, and in this alone, 
his versification fails him utterly. The lines afford one 
another no support For instance this sequence (lines 
4-6):- 

Ultima Cumsei venit jam carminis aetas. 
Magnus ab integro sasclorum nascitur ordo. 
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. 

Toss them in a bag and throw them out, and they will 
fall as rightly in one place as another. Any one of them 
may come first ; any one of them come last ; any one of 
them may come immediately ; better that any one should 
never come at all." But in this criticism (apart from the 
fact that the force of the lines would suffer seriously if 
they were transposed, though grammar and metre might 
be uninjured), Landor has not observed that Virgil is 
deliberately trying an experiment in order to obtain a 
special effect. We do not maintain that the ruling metrical 
form would be suitable for ordinary Latin use, but its em 
ployment in this case is obviously intentional and dictated 
by the subject ; it is no case of accidental failure in versi 
fication. 

The two most distinguishing and salient metrical char 
acteristics of this Eclogue are, first, that the stops coincide 
more regularly with the ends of lines than in any other 
passage of Virgil, so that to a large extent each single verse 
gives a distinct sense ; and, secondly, that in a number 
of cases the second half of the line repeats with slight 



XXI I L " Your Poets have Said:' 341 

variation the meaning of the first half, or, when the sense 
is enclosed in two hexameters, the second repeats the mean 
ing of the first. These characteristics are unlike any pre 
vious treatment of the hexameter. As to the first, it is 
true that in the earliest stages of Virgil's metre the stops 
are placed at the ends of lines to a much greater extent 
than in its later stages. But there is a general agreement 
among Latin scholars that the fourth Eclogue is not the 
earliest ; and even compared with the earliest, its metre is 
seen to be something peculiar and apart. 

These characteristics are distinctly those of Hebrew 
poetry ; and it appears to me that the metrical treatment 
of this Eclogue can hardly be explained except as an experi 
ment made in imitation of the same original, from which 
sprang the central conception of the Better Age surely 
approaching, and inaugurated by the birth of a child. 
Virgil found the idea and the metrical form together ; 
that is to say, he did not gather the idea from a secondary 
source, but had read it (in translation) as expressed by a 
great writer, whose poetic form dominated his mind for the 
moment. Only a writer of the loftiest poetic powder could 
have so affected the mind of Virgil. We notice, 00, that 
the peculiar metrical form is most marked where the ex 
pression approaches the prophetic type, while in the de 
scriptive parts the metre is closer to the form common in 
the Eclogues. 

That such an origin for Virgil's idea is possible, will be 
doubted by no one who takes properly into account both 
the width of his reading, and the influence which the strange 
and unique character of the Jewish nation and religion 
(and here the religion made and was the nation) already 
had exerted and was exerting on the Graeco-Roman world. 
That is a subject over which there hangs, and must always 



342 XXI1L " Your Poets have Said:' 

hang, a thick veil ; but enough is known to give us increasing 
certainty, as time goes on, that the fascination which 
Judaism exerted on a certain class of minds was very strong, 
and its influence on Roman society far greater than is appar 
ent in the superficial view which alone is permitted us in 
the dearth of authorities, 

Finally, the often quoted analogies with several passages 
of the prophet Isaiah afford some indication as to the 
identity of the great poet whose words, either in a Greek 
translation or in extracts, had come before Virgil, and 
influenced the development of his thought. It is true that 
there are numerous points in this Eclogue which go back 
to Greek models. The ideas taken up by Virgil from a 
Semitic source are developed in a mind rich with Hellenic 
knowledge and strong with a vigorous Italian life. Virgil 
is never a mere imitator except in his most juvenile work ; 
he reforms and transforms everything that he has learned 
from his great instructors. It is an Italian idyll that he 
has given us, not a mere transplantation of a foreign idea, 
or of any number of foreign ideas. 

The aim of the writer is rather to add to what Professsor 
Mayor has said than to differ from him. The process of 
adding, however, may sometimes change the point of view, 
though it does not really express any essential difference of 
opinion, but merely builds on what he has said already very 
well. Thus, though I think that mere knowledge of Sibyl 
line verses is not sufficient to explain the origin of the Fourth 
Eclogue, I should entirely agree in thinking that most 
probably Virgil was acquainted with those verses. 1 In all 
that Professor Mayor has said on this curious subject I must 

1 Most of the Sibylline books, as we have them, are later, but some are 
earlier, than Virgil, and there were almost certainly more in his time that 
have been lost. 



XXIIL " Your Poets have Said:' 343 

be taken as agreeing cordially ; and I quite admit that Virgil 
may have ideas from them and have been directed in his 
reading by them ; but I cannot consider that they are the 
sole or the chief foundation of the Fourth Eclogue. 

Professor Mayor sees quite clearly and rightly that the 
Fourth Eclogue must be studied as simply one moment in 
the long evolution of pagan thought. He sees that ancient 
thought and philosophy always turned on the idea of a 
steady degeneration in human life and in the history of the 
world. Even where there was among the ancients some 
conception of a cycle in mundane affairs, the cycle consisted 
of a degeneration culminating in total destruction, following 
by a fresh beginning on a better scale. This is not really 
anything more than a degeneration and a recreation by 
divine power. We have here nothing in any degree corre 
sponding to the modern idea of development and growth 
and steady improvement. 

Now the modern theory of human history, and especially 
of the history of religion, is that it is a continuous evolution 
from the savage state to the civilized, from cruelty to kindli 
ness, from ignorance to knowledge. Is the modern theory 
based on a true assumption, or on a false one? It is cer 
tainly based on a very big assumption ; and I cannot see 
that any real attempt is ever made to establish the assump 
tion on a firm basis. We are now all devotees of the theory 
of evolution ; it is no longer to us a theory, it has become 
the foundation and guiding principle of all our thought. 
We must find some principle of development everywhere and 
in all things ; and we arrange our view of history accordingly. 
But this is all very good, if we get hold of the right principle 
of development in history : then it is a truly scientific process 
that we are following. But what if we have got hold of 
a false principle? Then our whole procedure is pseudo- 



344 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 

scientific, and only leads further and further away from the 
truth. 

The ancient view was diametrically the opposite of the 
modern. To the ancient all history was a progress towards 
decay, a degeneration from good to bad. We are too apt 
to set aside this old view without a thought as pure pre 
judice and as the ancient fashion ; all people used to think 
so. We remember the usual tendency of old persons to 
moralize on the better state of the world in their youth, and 
on the decay of good conduct and good manners. But is 
that all that lies underneath the ancient view ? When we 
remember the practical universality of that view, and the 
way in which it colours all ancient literature, I cannot think 
that this is a sufficient explanation of the phenomenon. It 
was not merely the conscious expression of philosophers or 
of popular moralists : it was the deep, almost unconscious, 
hardly articulate view of all men. It caused that undertone 
of sadness which one hears in all Greek and Roman poetry, 
a certain note of hopelessness which makes itself felt every 
where. Every person who has to lecture on ancient poetry, 
and especially Roman poetry, to young students must often 
call their attention to this deep-seated feeling. It is the 
same that every one who lives in Constantinople at the 
present day 1 becomes conscious of. It arises from the 
inevitable perception that one is in an atmosphere of decay, 
degeneration, degradation, and that there is no improvement 
to be hoped for. The contemplation of and living among 
the degenerate aspects of modern civilization, as seen in 
great cities, produces something of the same feeling ; but the 
sense of hopelessness is here not so strong ; the evil and the 
decay are equally conspicuous, but there is also a correcting 

1 This was first written 20 years ago. It is true in 1914, though in the 
period of hope, 1908 onwards, it ceased for a time to be the case. 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 345 

impression of error that may be rectified and fault that must 
be struggled against. 

But that hopelessness was the almost universal feeling 
in the world of Greek and Roman paganism. To regard 
it as mere popular fallacy, and lightly to set it aside as of 
no account, as the modern writers generally do, is neither 
scientific nor justifiable. That the professional philosophers 
should have erred is not impossible or even improbable ; but 
the universal deep-lying feeling of the people, underlying all 
their poetry and guiding their half-articulate expression of 
thought, cannot be wrong, and must be accounted for. To 
one who looks at ancient history in the Mediterranean lands 
it must seem to rise from a perception of the truth and the 
facts. 

It was patent to every observer in late Greek and Roman 
times that the history of the Mediterranean lands had on 
the whole been a process of degeneration and decay ; and 
as we now look back over that history we must come to the 
same opinion. In the sphere of agriculture we can trace in 
outline the peaceful conquest in remote time of a naturally 
rocky and barren land for the use of man. We can recover 
through recent research some faint idea of the way in which 
prosperity, civilization, and well-being in the Mediterranean 
lands were built up in early time of the knowledge, accumu 
lated experience, wisdom and forethought which were applied 
in order to lay the foundations of that prosperity of the 
order, peace, settled government and security of property 
which made that slow, laborious process possible. Of this 
subject the present writer has published a brief study in his 
"Luke the Physician and other Studies," p. 171, entitled 
" The Peasant God ". 

And to take just one example in the intellectual sphere, 
we now know that the art of writing was well known and 



346 XXI I L " Your Poets have Said" 

familiarly practised at a very early time in the Mediterranean 
world (especially the East Mediterranean) ; and that practical 
administration presupposed the existence of that knowledge 
and familiar use of writing. The processes of government 
and law were based on the principle that everything must 
be written down at the moment, e.g. that all sales and con 
veyance of important property must be registered in writing. 
But this inestimably important fact we have learned only 
in quite recent times from the discovery of the writings 
themselves : a process of discovery in which this University 
has played the leading part. We know that people wrote 
at a very early time, because we have found the documents 
which they wrote on stone, on bronze, on pottery, partly 
incised or in relief, partly in ink. The use of ink is an 
extremely important fact, because ink was never invented 
for use on materials of that kind ; it was invented for the 
purpose of writing on more perishable materials, such as 
paper or skins or parchment ; ink-written pottery implies 
the previous and contemporary use of those less durable 
materials. 1 But Egypt is the only country which is dry 
enough to preserve such perishable substances ; and the 
wider knowledge and use of ink furnishes the proof that 
similar perishable materials for writing were used in other 
countries besides Egypt. 

In this way we are beginning to elaborate an outline of 
the ancient Mediterranean civilization, and to trace the 
steps of its history and its gradual decay. 

Its decay arose from inner weakness ; and the inroads 
of eastern barbarians, which finally destroyed it, became 
dangerous only when its weakness increased. There is 
always going on the same historic conflict between civilization 

1 See " The Letters to the Seven Churches," chap. i. 



XXI I L " Your Poets have Said" 347 



and barbarism ; and so long as civilization is true to itself, 
healthy in its construction, or, as Paul would say, so long as 
it listens to God, it can resist and overcome the forces of 
barbarism. Paul, in his brief way, sums up the stages of 
decay as the stages in the degeneration of human sympathy 
with and knowledge of the Divine nature, i.e. in the growth 
of idolatry. We may work them out in more detail, and 
show the precise changes in circumstance and outward 
form by which the decay proceeded. We may trace how 
the inner weakness showed itself first in one region, then in 
another. We may see that Sicily and Greece were already 
a prey to ruin, when some other parts of the Mediterranean 
world were still growing and healthy. We can delight 
ourselves with the picture which Statius draws, as late as 
A.D. 92, of the improvement effected by wisely planned 
operations on the bare rocky headland of Surrentum (Sor 
rento), on the southern horn of the Gulf of Naples, where the 
barren expanse of stone was subdued to the use of man and 
became docile to his hand, where the projecting rocks were 
cut down to the level, and the soil brought and laid down, 
so that groves of trees could grow, where no soil, but only 
bare stone, formerly was seen ; where a marvel greater than 
the fables of Orpheus and of Amphion was taking place 
before the sight of living men, under the orders of a wise 
owner, who made the rocks move and the tall forests follow 
after him. In that picture you have an account which may 
be applied all round the Mediterranean Sea in ancient times, 
and which still applies to a few regions like Malta (naturally 
a bare rock, where almost all the soil has been introduced 
by man). 

Not merely was this idea of a continuous degeneration 
of the Mediterranean world practically universal in Greek 
and Roman thought, it is also a fundamental principle in 



348 XXIIL " Your Poets have Said:' 

the view of the Apostle Paul. There was only this one 
mighty difference: the pagan opinion was hopeless and 
despairing with one remarkable exception, which we must 
proceed to study in its character and extent whereas Paul 
made this opinion the foundation on which to base his 
argument that all nature and all men were eagerly looking 
for a Saviour from this impending ruin and death, and that 
the Saviour was before them, and offered to them, if they 
would only recognize and believe. 

In this way Paul presented his doctrine to the men of the 
Graeco-Roman world as the completion and culmination 
of their own philosophy and their own experience. He did 
not denounce their philosophical or religious views as wholly 
wrong. He maintained that in their original opinions there 
was contained some true knowledge about the nature of God 
and about His relation to mankind ; but that there had 
been a degeneration from this fair beginning. The reason 
of the degeneration lay in the growth of false ideas about 
the nature of God, i.e. in idolatry. Yet man, as Paul says, 
never becomes so wholly corrupt that it is impossible for him 
to recover his lost advantages and return to the truth. 
Some of the Gentiles, knowing not the higher truth of the 
Law as revealed to the Jews, are a Law unto themselves ; 
but in most of them this instinct towards the truth has 
become so obscured by wrong-doing that they have lost all 
consciousness of it, and cannot and will not hear the voice 
of God in their hearts. Still in the most utterly vitiated 
pagan man there remains a sense of misconduct, a feeling 
of pain, and a consciousness that he is wrong. This remnant 
of the original power of apprehending the Divine truth is 
traceable in the sorrow and the pain and regret from which 
no man is free entirely. So long as this pain lasts, hope 
exists that the man may return to God. The pain is an 



XXIII. " Your Poets have Said" 349 

accompaniment of the coming birth of higher ideas, of 
regeneration and redemption. 

This Pauline view, as stated in Romans I. 19 ff., II. 14 f., 
VIII. 19 ff., has been described more fully in the " Teaching of 
Paul in Terms of the Present Day," pp. 132, etc. 

The Pauline theory of degeneration is simply the applica 
tion to human history of the ultimate fact from which he 
begins, and on which his whole mind and being rests his 
consciousness that the Divine alone is real, and that all else 
is mere error and false appearance. From this initial fact 
it follows that a serious error as to the nature of God dis 
torts and vitiates the nature of man. If the error goes on 
increasing and deepening, the distortion and vitiation of 
man's nature becomes worse and worse : in other words, the 
history of man and of society, in a state of idolatry and 
thorough misconception of the Divine nature, must be a 
process of steady, continuous degeneration. There can be 
no standing still in human life. The mind which sees God 
and hears His voice must move towards Him, and compre 
hend His nature better and better. The mind which is 
closed against the Divine voice is necessarily involved in a 
process of hardening, of increasing blindness, and of pro 
gressive degradation. 

Thus the universal pagan view about the history of the 
Mediterranean lands seemed to Paul merely the correct per 
ception of the facts of life, a proof of the original affinity 
that united human nature to truth and the Divine ; and the 
tone of melancholy in pagan literature was to him a symptom 
of the pain which afforded some hope that the Graeco-Roman 
world might awaken to the consciousness and true perception 
of God. 

The degeneration of the pagan world had worked itself 
out by certain stages, which it is the business of the historian 



350 XXIII. " Your Poets have Said:' 

to trace in detail. Paul's business was only to insist on the 
fact of this degeneration, to prove it from the universal 
consciousness of men, to insist on the one and only possible 
remedy, and to point out that this remedy was open and 
ready and certain for the whole world. 

Now, as we have said, there was one exception to this 
universal hopelessness in the pagan world; and this excep 
tion was born out of the most desperate straits to which the 
Mediterranean world had yet been reduced, viz. the Civil 
Wars of Italy, and the apparently imminent ruin of the one 
great remaining power of order in the Mediterranean. The 
terrible suffering entailed by those wars and disorder proved, 
just as the Pauline view declared, the birth-pangs of a new 
hope. It was in this situation that the Fourth Eclogue 
sprang into being, the announcement by a great poet of the 
hope which was coming into being in the minds of many at 
this crisis. 



PART III. 
ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE ROMAN PHRYGIA 

THE position and numbers and influence of the Jews under 
the Roman Empire outside of Palestine is an interesting and 
obscure subject which has been discussed (to mention only 
moderns) by many scholars, such as Reinach, LeVy, etc., 
since Schurer's great collection of the statistics appeared. 
Even more interesting is the question as to the character, 
the religious feelings and beliefs, the conduct and moral 
standard of action of the extra-Palestinian Jews. 

At present we are concerned only with those Jews so far 
as they are set before us in the Acts, and mainly in the Pauline 
provinces of Asia Minor, viz. Asia and Galatia ; and even 
there we have only to publish a new document and to 
show what important light it throws on other memorials 
already known, and hardly suspected 1 to be Jewish. The 
present writer has had something to say from time to time 
on this subject, especially on the character and conduct of 
the extra-Palestinian Jews. One most important fact is 
the following : yet his attempts to draw attention to it have 
failed (''Pauline and other Studies," p. 347). 

So long as the Jews were living in a small country like 
Palestine, it would be possible, -in the disposition of the 
calendar and fixing of the proper full moon for the Passover, 

1 My suggestion that they were perhaps Jewish (which is mentioned in 
the sequel) was received with scepticism ; and it was considered that I was 
suspecting Jewish influence without any justification or sound reason. 

(353) 23 



354 XXIV. The Old Testament 

to be guided by local conditions and actual experience of 
the first visible appearance of the new moon ; but when 
Jews were coming to the Passover from distant parts of the 
Mediterranean world, and even sometimes from places out 
side of the Mediterranean basin, it was necessary that the 
calendar should be fixed long beforehand, so that travellers 
to Palestine should know whether to expect the Passover 
in March or thirty days later. Thus the sacred month had 
to be fixed at least in the previous year and published then 
through the Jewish world. For this purpose astronomical 
considerations alone could be taken into account ; and there 
was abundant astronomical knowledge available at the time. 

It is, of course, highly probable that the local conditions 
were observed in the traditional sacred fashion, and the first 
appearance of the new moon duly reported to the high-priest, 
who then put out the proper advertisement of the approaching 
feast : but it was already known that the moon was there, 
and the day of the feast had been unofficially advertised in the 
calendar a year or several years previously. Without this 
admission of scientific knowledge, the problem of keeping the 
distant Jews true to the holy custom of the holy city would 
have been far harder. After A.D. 70, when the city was de 
stroyed and the feast no longer drew the Jews to Jerusalem, 
the whole situation changed. 

That there were large settlements of Jews in the Phrygian 
cities is well known. On one single occasion, about 200 B.C., 
Antiochus king of Syria brought two thousand Jewish 
families from Babylonia, and settled them in the cities 
which he and his predecessors had found in Phrygia ; and 
the statements of Cicero in his oration on behalf of Flaccus, 
the governor of the Roman province Asia, show that there 
was a population of very many thousands of Jews there in 
the last century before Christ. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 355 

Those Jews were placed there as supporters and trusted 
upholders of the power of the Greek kings, the successors 
of Alexander the Great, helping to maintain their hold of 
the country. Every foreign power ruling the country found 
the Jews useful and trustworthy. They were servants of 
foreign rulers, and therefore they were an aristocratic, con 
servative, dominant caste. This position powerfully influ 
enced their character and history, and not wholly for the 
better (" Cities of St. Paul," Part II). 

The correct understanding of the position and character of 
the Hellenist Jews in Asia Minor and Syria is of extreme 
importance for the proper appreciation of Luke's history. 
Paul's work lay among them largely at his first entry into 
any of the great cities of Asia and Galatia ; and the impres 
sion is forced on us by the narrative that they were present 
in large numbers everywhere he went, and that they exer 
cised great influence. In Europe, on the contrary, they 
were less important, and had evidently a struggle to 
maintain their position: in Philippi they were apparently 
not more than a mere handful. 

The work of Paul in the Anatolian cities starts from the 
Jews, is conditioned by their attitude to him, and is often 
brought to an end through their opposition. They can move 
the magistrates or the mob to take action against the new 
teaching, finding various charges under which they can mask 
their religious hatred and wear the guise of vindicators of the 
Roman law. That law depended always on voluntary pro 
secutors to set it in motion ; and the Jews appeared as 
delatores in the Roman courts. 1 See Chapter vi. 

1 The term delator was in the first century applied almost exclusively 
to one class of prosecutors, viz. those who brought charges under the law of 
treason in the interest of the Emperor. The Jews at Thessalonica appear in 
this guise, so familiar to us in the pages of Tacitus. But all voluntary ac 
cusers are equally entitled to be called delators. 



356 XXIV. The Old Testament 

This character ought to be recognized more clearly and 
definitely than is usually the case in the commentaries on 
the Acts. The Jews had to appear in the courts either as 
Roman citizens, if they possessed the civitas, or as ordin 
ary provincials. They possessed certain limited powers 
in their relation to members of their own race, and could 
in that way act through the synagogue against them as 
Jews ; but they desired to inflict on Paul and his compan 
ions more serious penalties than their Jewish powers were 
capable of; and they had to subject themselves to Roman 
regulations in order to secure Paul's expulsion or any 
severer punishment. As Romans or provincials they ap 
peared under Roman or Greek names, which they bore in 
the city ; but they had another aspect in which they ap 
peared to Paul and to their compatriots in the synagogues. 
That double character has to be clearly understood. In the 
case of Paul it corresponds to his double name, " Saul other 
wise called Paul V 

An interesting discovery fell to our lot in 1914, when my 
wife and I passed through Ushak on our way to Antioch 
the Pisidian. It throws some light on this subject, both 
directly and indirectly. 

Those Jews of Asia Minor for the most part either died out, 
or melted gradually into the surrounding population, a 
unique fact in Jewish history. They were too favourably 
situated. First the kings of Syria, then Julius Caesar, then 
the Roman Emperors, regarded them as faithful friends and 
subjects, and granted or confirmed many privileges in their 

1 It goes without saying that Paul had a complete Roman name, as to 
which our Hellenic historian does not inform us. Perhaps he was " C. Julius 
Paullus otherwise called Shaoul ". See " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 31. The 
frequent conjunction of the names Julius Paullus (or feminine) in Lycaonia 
gives some ground for this conjecture. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 357 

favour. There can be little doubt that the Jews married 
into the dominant families. The case of Timothy's mother 
in the Acts XVI. 2 f., may be safely regarded as typical ; it 
is an incidental example of the flood of light which the 
rational study of and trust in that great historical work 
throws on Roman social history in the Eastern Provinces. 

So much is necessary to explain the importance of the 
new discovery. A great deal more may be found in the 
three chapters on the Jews in Tarsus and in Antioch, and 
on Hellenism and Hebraism in my ''Cities of St. Paul" ; 
and also in the chapter XV. on the Jews in Phrygia in the 
" Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," Vol. II. Here it need 
only be said that discovery has been gradually proving the 
view there maintained regarding the large number of Jews 
and their influential position in the provinces of Galatia and 
Asia under the Roman Empire. The task of tracing these 
Jews is very difficult, because they adopted Greek or Roman 
names, and avoided anything distinctive in outward appear 
ance. Even in their epitaphs they are hard to detect. 

Critics of those books have sometimes expressed distrust 
or disbelief in these statements, and have doubted whether 
Jews would hide their nationality so persistently. These 
critics apparently hold that the Jews (whose existence in 
those regions can hardly be denied) have hardly left any 
known memorials of themselves, because these were pro 
bably buried in separate cemeteries which have not yet been 
discovered. 

They can point to the existence of separate Jewish ceme 
teries in Rome. There is, however, this difference between 
Rome and Phrygia. The Jewish cemeteries in Rome are 
the burying-place of a humble and despised caste ; but the 
Phrygian Jews were largely the nobles and the rich (as I 
have maintained). A humble and poor population clings 



358 XXIV. The O.T. in Roman Phrygia. 

to its distinctive religion, whereas a rich or aristocratic caste 
adapts itself to circumstances and refrains from blazon 
ing the distinguishing marks of religion, even when it still 
retains the religion. 

In May, 1914, we found at Ushak two gravestones, about 
five feet high, in shape tall square altars, surmounted by a 
pointed ornament like a conventionalized pine-cone. One 
of these was unimportant in every respect, except as prov 
ing that the same form of gravestone was common at the 
place of origin (which, as will be stated, was Blaundos) in 
the period A.D. 22O-5O. 1 

I. One of these gravestones was inscribed on two sides : 
on the principal side there is a long epitaph of the ordinary 
type, stating the name and family of the maker of the grave 
and its purpose, and finishing with a curse against any vio 
lator of the sepulchre : on the other side is a recital of 
the honours in the state which had been held by the maker 
of the tomb. At the top of the principal side is the date, 
equivalent to A.D. 248-9. Then follows the epitaph : 

" Aurelius Phrougianos, son of Menokritos, and Aurelia 
Juliana (his) wife, to Makaria (his) mother and to Alexandria 
(their) sweetest daughter, constructed (the sepulchre) while 
still living, in remembrance. And if any one after their 
burial, if any one (so /) shall inter another corpse or do in 
jury in the way of purchase, there shall be on him the curses 
which are written in Deuteronomy." 2 

1 A third was found with the other two, more ornate than the others, but 
of similar form and arrangement of lettering. See a later footnote. 

2 In July, 1914, I received from Mrs. Wingate of Cassarea in Cappadocia 
another copy (sent through Miss Dodd). The copy is correct except in some 
small details, especially the last word of the longer inscription. 

The texts of the two sides of this stone are as follows : 

(a) erovs r\y' (anno 333 of the Phrygian era = A.D. 248-9). 
/cal Aup. 'louAicw)) yvv^i avrov Ma/capta /j.ijrpl 



To face p. 358 




PLATE III. Two gravestones from Blaundos, now at Ushak. 
The epitaph of Aur. Phrougianos is engraved on two sides 
of the upright stone. Weather prevented a photograph 
of the inscribed sides. 




MMNOKPITOVKAIAYP 
lOYAlANHrYNHAYTOV 




ClAT)CMTAToTeeHVJAI 
AYToYc e IT iceAtel^ PoNJ 



roPAC IACfcClA\AVT^Al APA 



FIG. 8. Jewish epitaph from Blaundos, dated in the year 233, corresponding 
to A.D. 248-9. Square altar stone with rounded top. On one side is the 
second part of the epitaph : on the back is a hand-mirror in a sunk 
panel : the fourth side is blank. 



360 XXIV. The Old Testament 

On the other side are inscribed the honours : 
"Stewardship of the market-place, corn-purchasing, 
guardianship of order, having filled all municipal offices and 
duties and having held the post of strategos or commander." 1 
We were informed by a good authority that the two 
gravestones with some other stones had been brought from 
Blaundos, a city on the frontiers of Lydia and Phrygia, 
about eight hours south of Ushak. Marbles are brought in 
large numbers from the ancient sites for building purposes 
to the large modern towns like Ushak ; but statements of 
the provenance of such monuments always require to be 
scrutinized. In this case the authority is good. My 
informant, one of the richest and most respected Turks in 
Ushak, had nothing to gain from false information ; when 
he had no information he said so plainly : he was aware 
that digging had recently been going on to a considerable ex 
tent at Blaundos, and wished to take us there to see all 
that had been discovered. Moreover, the stones, though of 
a type similar to the Phrygian altar-stones, differ in form from 
the strictly Phrygian character (such as occurs at Akmonia) ; 
and an origin from Blaundos would suit well. 2 



avSpla Qvyarpl yXvicvrdrr) a>VTes KarfffffK^vacrav /j,vf][ji.r)s xapw. el 8e ris 

rb TeOrjvai avrovs, eT TLS flctyei erepoj/ vzupbv, ^ dSuc^cret \6y<p ayopafflas, effrat 

avrqi at apal -f) yeypafji/j.fvai ej/ r<p SevTepoi/6/j.Cj). 

\(b) a,yopavofj.lc[., ffeirwi/ela, 7rapa<pv\aKeia, traffas apxas Kal \irovpyias reXe- 
<ras, Kal a-Tparriyfiffavra. The construction is so confused and ungrammatical 
that it is difficult to tell whether the first three offices are to be treated as nomin 
atives, or as datives with jcoo-pqtfefs or some similar word understood, " hon 
oured with stewardship," etc. 

1 The enumeration is stated in the most illogical way and in total defiance 
of grammar; the participles are &pas and err parity fa avr a, nom. and accus. 

2 The stone published by Director Th. Wiegand, " Athen. Mitth.," 1911, 
P- 393. as found at Thyatira, was made by the same hand as the two which we 
saw at Ushak, and must be attributed also to Blaundos. We saw it in Berlin, 
and recognized its provenance instantly. Mr. Buckler tells me that it bears 
no resemblance to the stones of Thyatira, of which he has made a careful 
study. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 361 

This is perhaps the earliest writing that has come down 
to us stating the name of a book in the Old Testament. 
Older references to some of those books occur, but the hand 
writing in which the references were originally inscribed 
has perished. 

The allusion at the end of the principal inscription is to 
the great chapters of curses, Deuteronomy XXVII.-XXIX. The 
curses there written are not specifically against violators of 
graves ; but the same curses as are there written are here 
invoked against violation. Aurelius Phrougianos, son of 
Menokritos, therefore, was a Jew, and probably his wife 
also. 

The same custom of appealing to the curses in Deuter 
onomy can now be recognized in a number of other Phrygian 
epitaphs, found in widely separate cities of central Phrygia. 1 

The invariable Greek form of the name Deuteronomy is 
Aevrepovbiuov. Here the i is omitted. This is, as we may 
feel certain, due only to local pronunciation, in which i 
before a vowel was pronounced as y and left unexpressed in 
the writing. There is not the smallest reason to think that 
the name was in Phrygian Jewish circles AevTepovopos, or 
AevTepovofjLos. 2 We should really read in the inscription 
ev TO) AevTepovopya), leaving the accent as in the nominative 
and accusative of the name. 

II. (564 in " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia ") was found 

X * The complete Greek text of them all except VIII. is published in the 
" Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," under the numbers mentioned. I give 
here only the English translation of the part that bears on our purpose. 

2 I thought at first that the form intended was Seurepo (for Sevrepy) vAfjuf, 
but although the spelling is very bad, yet I hesitate to think that o could be 
used for v in the dative termination at such an early date as this. Such 
misspelling might occur in the seventh or ninth century after Christ, but 
hardly in A.D. 249. I should add that Mrs. Wingate's copy has Sevrepcp vopiip, 
but I took special note of o in Sevrepo, and doubt if my eye (though sometimes 
failing to see small lines) could have omitted iota here. 



362 XXIV. The Old Testament 

at Ushak : I have not seen it : it is dated A.D. 243-4. The 
inscription contains a curse strikingly similar in character 
to the epitaph of Phrougianos ; after which comes a legal 
penalty in the form of a fine : 

" And after the burial of me Alexander and my wife 
Gaiana, if any one shall open the tomb, there shall be upon 
him the curses as many as are written in (the book), on his 
sight and his whole body and his children and his life ; and 
if any one shall attempt to open (the grave), he shall pay 
to the treasury in the way of fine 500 denarii." 

This inscription was brought from Akmonia to Ushak (as 
is the case with a large number of the inscriptions at 
Ushak). It is described by MM. Legrand and Chamonard, 
as being engraved on a quadrangular altar, a form very com 
mon in Phrygia generally and at Akmonia : the ornamental 
top which is the distinguishing feature at Blaundos (see no. 
i) is here absent. Accordingly, though the real bearing of 
the curse can be understood only through the epitaph from 
Blaundos, there can be no doubt that they belong to different 
cities. So in no. 9 we shall find an Apamean epitaph 
whose meaning was misapprehended, until the inscription of 
Blaundos threw an unexpected light on it. 

The reference to the curses in Deuteronomy is therefore 
a general feature in the Jewish custom of Central Phrygia, 
and not a special feature of one family or one city. 
The Phrygian Jews were in the habit of adapting to the 
sepulchral purpose that part of the Law of Moses, which 
they found convenient for their purpose without any regard 
to its force in its own context. Such procedure is in accord 
with the Jewish way of using the words of the Bible. In this 
curse avyeypa/jL/jievai 1 means written in (the Book of Deuter- 



: ava-ypdjetv is used to indicate the careful entry in a 
book or on a stele, of laws, etc. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 363 

onomy, or the Law of Moses). " It is written " is a usual 
way of referring to the Scriptures. 1 

III. Akmonia (465, 466). I have hesitated much 
whether to assign Jewish or Christian character to this 
tomb ; and I conclude " probably this epitaph marked the 
grave of a Jewish Christian ; but it would appear that the 
Church here was of a debased type, much infected by non- 
Christian elements " (p. 566). The doubt would now appear 
to be decided ; the inscription is Jewish ; the part that bears 
on our subject is as follows : 

" And if anyone shall attempt after Amerimnos has been 
buried to intrude any other corpse, he shall have [to reckon 
with the most high God] " ; the end is lost. On another 
side of the stone : 

"[If any of them] shall bury any other, may they receive 
the unexpected stroke which their brother Amerimnos [re 
ceived] ; and if any of them shall not fear these curses, may 
the sickle of curse enter into their houses and leave no 



survivor." 



This epitaph belongs to Akmonia, and the following also 
is from the same city ; each helps to complete the other. 

IV. Akmonia (563). " [If any one shall intrude another 
corpse], he shall have to reckon with the most high God ; 
and may the sickle of curse [enter] into his house [and 
leave no survivor]." 

V. Akmonia (565). "Ammia, daughter of Eutyches, 
prepared the tomb for Salimachos her husband and herself 
from her own dowry ; and there shall be a curse extending 
to children's children prohibiting any other from being 
(here) buried except my son Eutyches and his wife." 

VI. Akmonia (566). " Gaius [son of ] in his lifetime 

is the form in the New Testament. 



366 XXIV. The Old Testament 

Alexander and Alexandria are common among the Hellenist 
Jews, and it will probably be found that names taken from 
the Seleucid kings were also common. This may seem 
strange to those who think only of the Palestinian Jews and 
their hatred for those kings. But the Hellenist Jews of 
Asia Minor and Syria were friends of the kings. The kings 
trusted them, employed them as trusty colonists and adher 
ents in their garrison cities of those lands, and bestowed 
many favours on them. The old-fashioned Palestinian 
Jews, who made the Maccabean revolt, were disposed to 
look down on the Hellenist Jews as too liberal and too 
much affected by foreign customs and Gentile ways. 

Again, the names Eutyches (and Tyche) 1 point to the 
Hebrew Naaman ; and Herzog in " Philologus," LVI. p. 50 ff. 
regards Eutyches as a translation of the Semitic name. 

At Sala in Phrygia on the Lydian frontier near Blaundos, 
there occur frequently on coins the names of Meliton 
Salamon and C. Valerius Androneikos Salamon, perhaps 
father and son. These are probably Roman citizens, with 
a Greek cognomen and they often add their Hebrew name 
as a second cognomen. 2 As the names are all in the geni 
tive, some might understand " of Meliton, son of Salamon," 
and " of C. Valerius Andronicus, son of Salamon " ; but 
Meliton and Androneikos cannot reasonably be regarded 
as brothers on account of the dates (Meliton 100-117; 



1 Tyche is a shortened form of Eutychia, " she who is fortunate ". 

2 Meliton never mentions his Latin names, but either the Greek alone, or 
the Greek and Hebrew names. It is only through C. Valerius Androneikos 
that we learn of the Roman citizenship and Roman name of Meliton. 
Androneikos sometimes omits the Hebrew name, and sometimes calls himself 
only by the Greek name : sometimes he has the Greek and Hebrew names 
without the Latin names. This case throws much light on the case of Paul 
otherwise called Saul. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 367 

Androneikos I3O-65). 1 The Hebrew name was an ad 
ditional cognomen used by both those Jews ; and we may 
infer that in many other cases the additional cognomen or 
alternative name was omitted amid the Greek and Roman 
surroundings in which the inscription was placed. 

There is some probability, then, that those Phrygian 
Jews still kept Hebrew names in their home life and the 
relations of the Synagogue as late as the third century : 
certainly this can be proved for the second century. There 
is a possibility that in V the strange name Salimachos may 
be a transformation of some Hebrew name : it would then 
be connected with Salem, " peace ". The analogy of L. 
Julius Pius Salamallianus, in which an old Carthaginian 
name, Salam-Allah, " the peace of God," survived late in 
the Imperial period, suggests that here in Phrygia the name 
should be understood, Salem-malchos, " Peace of the King ". 
The loss of the / before ch can be paralleled in the dialect 
of Greek spoken in Phrygia. 2 

Debbora is known at Antioch the Pisidian. 3 
Thus the use of Hebrew names at least as alternative 
and occasionally perhaps as the sole name 4 is established as 
probable or certain as late as towards A.D. 200. The 
Hebrew tradition was still alive at that date ; and the 
general character of the Hebrew people would suggest that 

1 Moreover, the form M 'AvSpo 5a\a/ivos is hardly reconcilable with 
the interpretation that A. was son of S. 

2 See the explanation of the forms ^a/ccS/iOTa, Kax^rrjs, for x a ^ K( *! J - ara > 
Ka\xeirT]5 (dialectic for xoA/ee/Trjs) in Phrygia Galatica, in my article in 
" Journal of Hellenic Studies," 1912, p. 160, with note by Mr. G. F. Hill. 

8 On Debbora, Deborah, see " Cities of St. Paul," p. 256. The tendency 
to retain women's names was naturally stronger, as has been said. 

4 Though Salimachos is the only name mentioned, the example of 
Androneikos Salamon proves that a strictly Greek name also may have been 
used in civic surroundings by this person. 



366 XXIV. The Old Testament 

Alexander and Alexandria are common among the Hellenist 
Jews, and it will probably be found that names taken from 
the Seleucid kings were also common. This may seem 
strange to those who think only of the Palestinian Jews and 
their hatred for those kings. But the Hellenist Jews of 
Asia Minor and Syria were friends of the kings. The kings 
trusted them, employed them as trusty colonists and adher 
ents in their garrison cities of those lands, and bestowed 
many favours on them. The old-fashioned Palestinian 
Jews, who made the Maccabean revolt, were disposed to 
look down on the Hellenist Jews as too liberal and too 
much affected by foreign customs and Gentile ways. 

Again, the names Eutyches (and Tyche) * point to the 
Hebrew Naaman ; and Herzog in " Philologus," LVI. p. 50 ff. 
regards Eutyches as a translation of the Semitic name. 

At Sala in Phrygia on the Lydian frontier near Blaundos, 
there occur frequently on coins the names of Meliton 
Salamon and C. Valerius Androneikos Salamon, perhaps 
father and son. These are probably Roman citizens, with 
a Greek cognomen and they often add their Hebrew name 
as a second cognomen. 2 As the names are all in the geni 
tive, some might understand " of Meliton, son of Salamon," 
and " of C. Valerius Andronicus, son of Salamon " ; but 
Meliton and Androneikos cannot reasonably be regarded 
as brothers on account of the dates (Meliton 100-117; 

1 Tyche is a shortened form of Eutychia, " she who is fortunate ". 

2 Meliton never mentions his Latin names, but either the Greek alone, or 
the Greek and Hebrew names. It is only through C. Valerius Androneikos 
that we learn of the Roman citizenship and Roman name of Meliton. 
Androneikos sometimes omits the Hebrew name, and sometimes calls himself 
only by the Greek name : sometimes he has the Greek and Hebrew names 
without the Latin names. This case throws much light on the case of Paul 
otherwise called Saul. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 367 

Androneikos I3O-65). 1 The Hebrew name was an ad 
ditional cognomen used by both those Jews ; and we may 
infer that in many other cases the additional cognomen or 
alternative name was omitted amid the Greek and Roman 
surroundings in which the inscription was placed. 

There is some probability, then, that those Phrygian 
Jews still kept Hebrew names in their home life and the 
relations of the Synagogue as late as the third century : 
certainly this can be proved for the second century. There 
is a possibility that in V the strange name Salimachos may 
be a transformation of some Hebrew name : it would then 
be connected with Salem, "peace". The analogy of L. 
Julius Pius Salamallianus, in which an old Carthaginian 
name, Salam-Allah, " the peace of God," survived late in 
the Imperial period, suggests that here in Phrygia the name 
should be understood, Salem-malchos, " Peace of the King". 
The loss of the / before ch can be paralleled in the dialect 
of Greek spoken in Phrygia. 2 

Debbora is known at Antioch the Pisidian. 3 
Thus the use of Hebrew names at least as alternative 
and occasionally perhaps as the sole name 4 is established as 
probable or certain as late as towards A.D. 200. The 
Hebrew tradition was still alive at that date ; and the 
general character of the Hebrew people would suggest that 



1 Moreover, the form M 'A/5po 5aAa^vos is hardly reconcilable with 
the interpretation that A. was son of S. 

2 See the explanation of the forms x^d/mara, Kaxfirris, for ^aA/ceij/iaTa, 
Ka\xeiTi)s (dialectic for x a ^ K ^ rr l s ) * n Phrygia Galatica, in my article in 
" Journal of Hellenic Studies," 1912, p. 160, with note by Mr. G. F. Hill. 

8 On Debbora, Deborah, see " Cities of St. Paul," p. 256. The tendency 
to retain women's names was naturally stronger, as has been said. 

4 Though Salimachos is the only name mentioned, the example of 
Androneikos Salamon proves that a strictly Greek name also may have been 
used in civic surroundings by this person. 



368 XXIV. The Old Testament 

these few facts may be taken as signs of more far-reaching 
conditions. 

On the other hand these facts are all associated with 
burial, and the tombstones are without exception devoid 
of any Hebrew characteristic, 1 and almost all markedly 
Phrygian in type. It is evident that the Phrygian Jews 
had adopted in regard to sepulture the custom of the 
country, and refrained from placing anything markedly 
national on the gravestone. They were therefore becoming 
to some extent assimilated to the people among whom they 
lived. The inscribing of a curse against violation of the 
tomb was probably borrowed from Phrygian usage ; and, 
while a certain difference of cast is given to the curse, yet 
this is recognizable as Hebrew only in the two cases I and 
IX. Yet there is no sign that there was any danger to the 
family in the confession of Hebrew origin : besides I and 
IX, there is a case where the maker of the tomb is 
" Alexander a Jew ". 2 These Jews were a powerful body, 
and as a whole they enjoyed Imperial favour. They had 
much to gain by living like their neighbours, and they did 
so. 

It has been pointed out in the book already quoted that 
the Jews probably so far conformed to Imperial custom as 
to become high-priests in the worship of the Emperors. 
This statement depends on the evidence of coins; and 
neither of the Jewish inscriptions in which the offices held 
by the maker of the tomb are mentioned alludes to a priest 
hood. Few, however, could be of such rank and wealth as 
to hold a high-priesthood, and perhaps also those who had 
held one would not like to blazon this on their tombs ; for 

1 Only in one case have I seen a seven-branched candlestick on a grave 
stone in Phrygia : " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," n. p. 651 f., no. 561. 
a " Cities and Bishoprics," n. p. 652, no. 562. 



in the Roman Phrygia. 369 

the fact would have been an outrage on the Book which 
they quoted, or had in mind, in the epitaph. 

The discovery confirms some of the most typical details 
in the picture given elsewhere of the Phrygian Jews. 

The incorrectness of the Greek in almost all these 
epitaphs is very marked. The Greek of the Christians was 
bad : 1 that of the Jews is quite as bad, and yet some of 
those who sin most were persons of high rank in their cities. 2 

1 This is noteworthy in their epitaphs, and is animadverted on by Aristides : 
see " Church in the Roman Empire," p. 351 f. 

2 In I KaT<rfficevacrav : generally the spelling is more correct than in any 
other of these epitaphs : elf rts is repeated unnecessarily : eo-rot has the plural 
apdi as subject ; ^ is written for of. Three of the offices are in the nomina 
tive (or dative), ayopavo/jila, etc., then follow apx&s . . . rcAeVay, but ffrparTj- 
yf)ffavra. I do not admit Sevrepo as dative for Sevrepy. 

In II Xoiir^ffas (01 for u), avvi-ri (v for ot), nvrj/juov, 8<re, [t]<n'j/ : the construc 
tion els '6pa<nv etc., is rather mixed. 

In III iffe\0oiro (middle for active, was loved in Phrygia : see examples 
quoted in my papers in " Philologus," Neue Folge, i. p. 755, and 
Zft. f. vgl. Sprachforschung, N. F., vin. p. 389) : so also eV/caraA-etyeTo 
(e for at) : firjSivav is doubly wrong. 

In IV IKOV for O!KOV. 

In V the construction of the curse is loose : yvvaiKi for accusative. 

In VI 7roA.Vei and yovrdpiov (on the latter see under VIII). 

In VII dvairo (see under III) : [oflxwva, if I rightly take it for of/coy, is 
a monstrum. (Compare TOVV&OVO, for rvpftov in a Graeco-Phrygian epitaph : 
Ramsay in Oesterr. Jahreshefte, 1905, Beib. pp. 79-120, no. xxxi.) 

In VIII K\v5ios (v for ov) : ris for '6ffns : irotffci : the curse has an unusual 
form (see footnote on the text). The word yotvrri (compare VI) is not Greek. 
The words yotvTiri and yovrdpiov are evidently names indicating the grave 
or some part or accessory of it. The latter is a formation from the former, in 
which v expresses probably a slight nasalization of r (a use of v of which 
many examples occur in the country). The word may perhaps be Phrygian 
in origin : it is not Hebrew or Semitic (as Prof. A. R. S. Kennedy tells me), 
nor is it either Greek or Latin. Keil and Premerstein quote from an inscrip 
tion of North Italy the word guntha (with guntharii), and if this is connected, 
it must have been brought to Italy by natives of Asia Minor. 

In XI ou T60f? (conjunctive apparently) : the construction of conditional 
sentences is always a difficulty in these and in very many Phrygian epitaphs. 

2 4 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE NAME OF THE EVANGELIST LUKE 

THE origin of the name Loukas has always presented 
difficulty, and has roused a good deal of discussion. The 
name belongs to the class of familiar or pet names (called 
in German Kosenamen), which are usually shortened 1 from 
a longer original form. 

Loukas is a Greek and not a Latin name. In Latin the 
prenomen Lucius could not produce a Kosenamen Loukas ; 
and those scholars who are thinking of the Latin name 
Lucius cannot recognize any connexion between it and 
this Greek name Loukas. 

The difficulty presented itself at an early period : what 
is the full, proper, legal name of which the popular and 
familiar corresponding form was Loukas ? Several manu 
scripts of the Old-Latin (which must, as Professor A. Souter 
says, be attributed to the fifth century) give the name of 
the Evangelist as Lucanus. There was therefore as early 
as Cyprian a certain school or group in the West, where 
the Latin Bible was used, which believed that Lucanus 
was the correct name. Did this belief rest on an old 
tradition, or was it the result of educated speculation about 
the name? If it rested on a really ancient tradition, it 
would have great weight ; but this is improbable ; there is 

1 Some are made by adding a suffix of the proper kind, and the name is 
thereby lengthened, so for example lulia, Kosenamen lulitta. 

(370) 



XXV . The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 371 

no reason to think that such a tradition would be preserved 
in one small part of the West alone. The Latin manuscripts 
have, as a rule, elsewhere the reading secundum Lucam. 
The reading secundum Lucanum must therefore be due to 
learned speculation and discussion about the origin of the 
form, and has only the authority that attaches to the educa 
tion and philological knowledge of the school. The form 
was strange ; it was Greek, not Latin ; and they asked how 
it originated. We also must put the same question, and 
seek for evidence. Philological speculation among the 
ancients had not much value, because it was not guided by 
authority and method, but largely by fancy; and we are 
perfectly free to set aside their philological speculation as of 
no real value. 

How should the question be put ? The right formulation 
of the problem is scientifically of the highest importance. 
We ought not to ask what Latin name would be most likely 
to become Loukas ; such a way of putting the question is 
unscientific. The matter belongs to Greek usage, not Latin. 
The name Loukas is Greek, and doubtless originated in the 
mouths of Greek -speaking persons, treating names according 
to Greek tendencies and fashions. Moreover, it is certain 
on other grounds that the great writer and historian in the 
New Testament who bore the name Loukas, was a Hellene, 
living in Hellenic society. We have to ask whether or not 
the Greek name Loukios, borrowed from the Latin Lucius, 
could according to Greek custom have as a familiar by-form 
the Kosenamen Loukas. 

This question must be treated as a matter of evidence. 
Are there any examples of the equivalence Loukios = 
Loukas? If such examples exist, then there ceases to be 
any question, for it would be evident that people who 
spoke of Loukas knew that they were speaking of one 



372 XXV . The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

whose more ceremonious and proper name was Loukios. 1 
If no examples of the equivalence occur, there would be a 
certain presumption that the two forms were not equivalent ; 
and this presumption would increase in proportion to the 
extent of our knowledge of colloquial and familiar forms in 
Greek. 

Hitherto no proof could be given that the two names 
were used as equivalents in the East. No case was 
known in which any individual was called indifferently 
Loukios and Loukas ; and without some proof of the equi 
valence it seemed unsafe to maintain that the fuller Loukios 
ever degenerated into Loukas. Accordingly there came to 
be among modern scholars a growing strength of opinion 
that Lucanus was the proper Latin form of the name of the 
Evangelist. 2 

Professor V. Schultze, 3 however, thought otherwise, and 
unhesitatingly maintained the opinion that Loukas, the 
familiar name, implied a more formal Loukios as the proper 
name of the historian. As for the present writer, he could 
not go with Schultze, but held that the balance of evidence 
accessible was against the equivalence. 

We have not a large store of evidence about the equival 
ence of full names and corresponding familiar names among 
the Greek-speaking peoples ; and, therefore, the recent dis- 



1 Similarly in English custom those who speak to or of Charlie or Willie 
or Johnnie know that the person so mentioned bears the name Charles or 
William or John in more ceremonious style. The occasional giving of a 
diminutive name to a child as his proper name is due to individual freaks of 
taste, and is not proved to have been common in the early Imperial age. 

2 I think that I have somewhere stated this opinion, but new evidence 
has convinced me of my error. 

3 Professor Deissmann reminded me of his view. Schultze had kindly sent 
me his article, when it appeared ; but I am at present not able to find the 
copy. 



XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 373 

covery at Pisidian Antioch of a considerable number of in 
scriptions expressed in popular colloquial style, and 
containing names of the Kosenamen type, presents some 
interest. 

Parts of the south-west and north-west walls of the 
peribolos, which surrounded the sanctuary of the god of 
Antioch, Men Askaenos, one of the wealthiest and most 
powerful gods of Asia Minor, are covered with dedicatory 
inscriptions recording vows to the god. These all belong 
to the Roman period, and a certain number of them are ex 
pressed in Latin. The Latin vows are, in general, the 
oldest ; and some of them are perhaps as early as the time 
of Augustus and his immediate successors. The vast 
majority, however, of them are the work of Greek-speaking 
people, who bore Roman names. 

The dedications in the Greek language were therefore 
made, as a rule, not by the original Latin-speaking colonists 
of Antioch, a sort of aristocracy in the town, but either by 
the Greek-speaking population, who sprang from the pre- 
Roman inhabitants of Antioch, or by the descendants of the 
old Roman colonists, who gradually degenerated from the 
Roman standard and were merged in the Greek-speaking 
people. These Greek-speaking inhabitants (incolae} were 
gradually elevated to the Roman citizenship ; and it is 
proved in a paper by Mrs. Hasluck ("Journal of Hellenic 
Studies," 1912, pp. 144 ff.) that there exists among the 
dedications an overwhelming majority of Roman names. 
Some are slave-names, others are the names of freedmen 
(liberti) or of incolae?- and a few are probably names of de- 

1 Incolae were distinguished from the coloni in a colonia like Antioch. 
They were the older non- Roman population in the colonia, but they had a 
share in the privileges of a colonia, and they were gradually advanced to the 
dignity of Roman citizens and took Roman names. 



374 XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

scendants of the original Roman colonists. The dedications 
are often expressed in the familiar speech, and give some 
interesting evidence about the Greek usage in respect of 
Latin names. 




FIG. 9. Dedication to the God Mn by L. Tillius Crito and his wife, 
engraved on a buttress of the outer wall of the Sanctuary at Pisidian 
Antioch. 

I. Copied by Mr. J. G. C. Anderson, Mr. W. M. Calder, 
and myself in 1912. 

In very rough and rude lettering on the south-west wall 
of the sanctuary of Men : letters small and hard to read : 
NouyL&e- Loukas Tillios 

pia Ov- Kriton (and) 

9 KpLTco- VOVO-T- Noumeria Ve- 

v a nousta 



Mrjvl 



to Men 
a vow 



XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 375 

The names of the man and woman are inscribed in two 
spaces marked off by lines as aediculae of the type usual in 
these vows to the god of Antioch. The name of the god 
and the statement of the vow written beneath was intended 
to be common to the two aediculae. The two names are 
therefore a pair, i.e. husband and wife. 

Although the name of the god and the vow are written 
only at one corner x under the two aediculae there can be no 
doubt that the aediculae are a connected pair, and that the 
vow is common to both. The aediculae are often grouped 
in this way at the Sanctuary, sometimes as many as five 
being connected together. In the accompanying photo 
graph of a small part of the Sanctuary wall there are groups 
of two, three, four, and five aediculae, and also single 
aediculae. The general appearance rarely leaves any doubt 
whether a group or a single aedicula is intended. The 
surface generally was smoothed to receive the carving, and 
the shape of the cutting is usually sufficient indication of 
the grouping (as in this case), while other signs also conspire. 
Aediculae of different groups vary in shape and size, and 
grouping is indicated by placing the members of the group 
close together and making them identical in shape and 
size. 

This, therefore, is a joint dedication by L. Tillius Crito 
(and his wife) Numeria Venusta to the god of the sanctuary. 
Both bear Latin names (except the Greek cognomen of the 
husband) : both are cives Romani. Yet they are a Greek- 
speaking family to whom Greek comes more naturally than 
Latin. 

There cannot be the slightest doubt that Loukas Tillios 
Kriton was a Roman citizen, whose name in Latin must 

1 A crack running across the stone compels this arrangement of the letters, 



376 XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

have been Lucius Tillius Crito. In the Greek that was 
spoken at Antioch Loukios and Loukas were evidently felt 
to be equivalent; and Crito writes himself in Greek as 
Loukas. His third name suggests that he was perhaps a 
freedman; but it is (as Mrs. Hasluck says) 1 difficult or 
even impossible to distinguish the names of freedmen 
from the names of incolae who had received the Roman 
citizenship and had assumed the full name of the civis 
Romanus. 

This single case would be sufficient and conclusive : one 
clear example is legally as strong as a hundred. The 
equivalence was accepted at Antioch ; and there can be no 
reason for thinking that Antiochian custom differed from 
that of other Greek-speaking towns of Asia Minor and the 
Roman East generally : Loukas was a Greek Kosenamen 
of Loukios. 

This case does not stand alone. There are several 
examples among these Antiochian dedications, in which the 
same individual or family repeats the inscription, usually 
with some variations. In one of these pairs the same per 
son is mentioned once as Loukios and once as Loukas. 
The two dedications in question, which are engraved very 
near one another, are seen on pp. 378-9. 

2. On the sixth buttress from west corner of S.W. wall 
of the Great Sanctuary : 

Mrjvl To Men 

a vow 

'A/3a<r/cdv[T- Gamos (son) of Abas- 

ov /j,e [7]w[/u<eo9. kantos with his wife. 

AOVKIOS wo9. Loukios a son. 

o9 Pompilius a son. 

1 " Journal of Hellenic Studies," 1912, p. 145, note 67. 



XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 377 

3. On the wall close to the same buttress : 
Mrjvl evxtiv To Men a vow 

JTa/4O5 'Aftdcr/cdvTov Gamos son of Abas 

hes, /cal Aov/cas Kal kantos, and Loukas, and 

IIov/jL7rov/jL\io<; (sic /) Pompilius 

Kal EvSogos. and Eudoxos. 

The second of this pair of dedications was correctly read 
by Mrs. Hasluck, Mr. Calder, and myself in igii, and 
published by Mrs. Hasluck in the "Journal of Hellenic 
Studies," 1912, p. 130, with one slight difference. 1 

The other we failed to read completely in 1911 : part of 
it is published by Mrs. Hasluck on p. 127. In 1912 2 we 
deciphered it entirely, and then found that the two are 
almost duplicates. 

The modern Greek form pe for perd is here used, and is 
a good example and proof of the colloquialism of the 
dedications. Other examples of fte occur in the epigraphy 
of central Anatolia in the fourth century ; but the com 
plete form is far more common. 

In the second dedication, which is apparently later than 
the first, Eudoxos is mentioned : in the first the wife of the 
dedicant Gamos occurs. 

This difference must be carefully noted. Probably 

1 She gives the name as Gallos, not Gamos ; but states in her commen 
tary that Gamos is quite possible. I appended in a footnote to her paper 
that my reading was unhesitatingly Gamos, and quoted a Bithynian example 
of this name. Re-examination in 1912 by Mr. Anderson, Mr. Calder, and 
myself, confirmed this reading. It is often difficult to distinguish AA from /* 
in these dedications. 

2 When we first uncovered them in 1911, the letters were filled with soil, 
of the same colour as the stone, being decomposed from it. During the 
winter of 1911-12 the stones were washed clean by rain : the cleansing made 
them easier to read, but even in 1912 this and many others of the dedications 
were difficult. This one was read by Mr. J. G. C. Anderson, Mr. Calder, and 
myself. 




evx 



TAAA OCAB AC 
v\A CT Y 




Fio. 10. Dedication to Men by Gamos and his family, engraved on the outer 
wall of the Sanctuary at Pisidian Antioch. 




rAMOCABACKANTOY 
VOCKAlAOVKACkAl 




I70YM170V-MA\OC 





KAievAOlOC 



FIG. ii. Dedication to Men by Games and his family, engraved on the outer 
wall of the Sanctuary at Pisidian Antioch. The line on the left repre 
sents the edge of the buttress on which the other dedication by Gamos 
is incised. 



380 XXV . The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

Eudoxos is a son born since the earlier dedication, while 
the mother is now left out. It is a plausible, and even 
highly probable interpretation of the facts, that the vows 
were both made by the family in a season of danger. The 
whole family, father, mother and two sons, made the first 
dedication : the father and three sons made the second : 
the mother had passed away in the interval. The period 
of childbirth was a dangerous one, when doctors were few 
and medical practice in an elementary condition. Dr. W. 
R. Macdonell has established by a wide survey of the evi 
dence, 1 that under the Empire the expectation of life for 
young women was less than for men, and for elderly and 
old women greater. The reason obviously lies in that one 
supreme danger. In the family of Gamos we have an in 
dividual case of the general principle. 

It follows, then, that Loukios in the first vow is the same 
as Loukas in the second : he was the eldest son of the de- 
dicant Gamos. 

Two witnesses suffice. An accumulation of other ex 
amples would not really strengthen the argument. Loukios 
and Loukas were felt as equivalent names by the Antiochian 
Greeks, one formal and the other familiar. 

It has often been pointed out, and is a familiar fact, that 
the two names, the polite and the familiar, are known in the 
case of several persons mentioned in the New Testament, 
Apollds and Apolldnios, Priscilla and Prisca, Silas and 
Silvanus. Of these Apollonios is found only in the Bezan 
Codex ; but its presence there is a sufficient proof. 2 By its 
form Apoll6s is proved to be a Kosenamen ; and Apolldnios 
is the full name. The same man was called Apoll6nios 
in formal and polite speech, Apollos in familiar usage. 

1 See his paper in " Biometrika," 1913, ix., pp. 366-386. 

2 " Church in the Roman Empire before 170," p. 152. 



XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 381 

It happens that Loukios is not attested in any document 
as the formal name of the Evangelist ; but we now have 
the proof that in Antioch, and therefore generally, Loukas 
was known to be the familiar form of Loukios. 

Another point also has to be observed, as indicative of 
popular custom at Antioch. The wife and mother is al 
luded to, but not named : and the omission of the wife's 
name is very common at this Sanctuary. Among the 
vows there are others where the mother is named with 
her children ; and there we may conclude that she is 
the head of the family, either because she survived her 
husband or for some other reason. The omission of the 
wife's name puts her in a secondary position as a mere 
adjunct, and this is hardly in accordance with Anatolian 
custom, in which the position of women was important and 
influential. 1 In this case it may be accounted for by the 
character of the cult of Men ; the personality of the god in 
the Antiochian religion gradually became more and more 
dominant, while that of the goddess associated with him sank 
into the background (as Mr. Anderson has shown clearly). 2 

In these three inscriptions there occur two different 
usages. In no. i Loukios or Loukas is a Roman prcenomen : 
Lucius Tillius Crito was a Roman citizen with a proper 
Roman name. His cognomen Crito, however, shows that 
he was a Hellene by race, who had been promoted to the 
citizenship : 3 either he was libertine in origin, or he was an 
incola who had attained the Roman citizenship. 

In nos. 2, 3, Loukios seems to be used as the full and 
sole name of a Hellene. Prcenomina were often taken over 

1 '* Church in Roman Empire," pp. 67, 161. 

3 See his article in the " Journal of Roman Studies," 1913, p. 272. 
3 Possibly his family had been promoted to citizenship and he inherited 
ci vitas (like Paul). 



382 XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

into Greek usage and employed as the full and sole name 
of Hellenes. x The mixture of Roman and Greek names in 
the same family is characteristic of a colonia. 

With regard to the name of the evangelist, there are two 
possibilities open. On the one hand Lucius may have been 
his prcenomen as a Roman citizen ; and in that case it would 
follow almost certainly that the physican Loukios was a 
freedman, who acquired the full Roman name when he was 
set free ; for the custom of society would make it probable 
that this physician, who led for many years the life of a 
companion of Paul, was not born a Roman citizen (as per 
haps Silvanus was). Physicians were often freedmen ; and 
freedmen were frequently addressed by their prcenomen^ 
which marked their rank. 2 

On the other hand the evangelist might have been a 
Hellene bearing the simple name Loukios, which was often 
adopted in Greek from the Latin as an individual name. 
Loukios was in such cases not a prcenomen^ and did not 
imply Roman citizenship ; in fact this usage was a complete 
proof that the man whose name in full was simply Loukios, 
without nomen or cognomen? was not a Roman citizen. We 
may also infer with equal certainty that a person named 
Loukios simply was not a slave ; the Roman name could not 
be degraded to a slave name in that age. Such a Loukios 
would be an ordinary free Hellene. 

1 A number of examples are mentioned in an article published by the pre 
sent writer in "Journal of Hellenic Studies," 1883, p. 36: Lucius, Gaius, 
Marcus, Quintus, are all found in use, single and complete, as names of 
Hellenes. 

3 See Horace, "Satires," n. 5,32: and the commentators thereon; 
" Quinte," puta, aut " Publi " : gaudent pr a nomine molles auricula. 

3 This does not apply to cases where in casual mention a man is spoken 
of by his prcenomen alone. I refer only to cases where the full legal name 
was Loukios. 



XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 383 

No evidence is known sufficient to prove which of these 
alternatives applied to the Evangelist Luke. The former 
would suit specially well with the profession of a doctor ; 
but a libertus usually remained in close relation to his 
former master, who continued to be his patronus. Luke 
was perfectly free to go about the world in Paul's company, 
and has no appearance of being in connexion with a patron. 
Exceptional cases might, however, occur. Perhaps some 
unnoticed detail may yet furnish a decisive argument. 

The correspondence of the Latin Lucius through the 
Greek Loukios with Loukas can be established by other 
similar cases which I quote from the excellent article 
and list of examples published by M. Lambertzin "Glotta," 
1913, Vol. IV, pp. 78- 1 43, and W. Schulze, " Graeca Latina," 
p. 12. From the Latin name Geminus comes the form 
Geminas, "which," as Lambertz says, "is in itself interest 
ing on account of the vivification of the Latin stem Geminus 
with the common Greek abbreviation-suffix as ". He then 
quotes from Schulze the following similar examples : 

Longinas (from Longinus), Rufas (from Rufus), Tiberas 
(from Tiberius), and Loukas. 1 

The last case is the one with which we have been deal 
ing. Schulze and Lambertz, both scientific philologists, 
assume its character and origin as obvious. We have now 
furnished two clear examples from ordinary life in the 
Eastern provinces. 

The conclusion may now be called certain. The name 
of the Evangelist Loukas implies an original form Lucius, 2 

1 Tiberas is a perfect parallel to Lucas ; the latter occurs in a Roman 
name C. Julius Lucas (Lepsius, Monum. aegypt. ittscr., vi. 17685). 

2 Lambertz 's exact words are added, " re/aj/as, der an sich interessant ist 
durch die Verquickung des lat Namenstammes (Geminus = At5u/tos) mit der 
haufigen griech. Kurzformendung-Ss ". This sentence states in the brief 
terms of philological science exactly what is printed in the text in full. I did 



384 XXV. The Name of the Evangelist Luke. 

but this original Latin name was used in the corresponding 
Greek form. 

The evidence is convincing and beyond doubt that the 
Evangelist was named Loukios or Loukas. Professor 
Deissmann has an article in preparation on this subject, to 
which I hoped to refer; but the war of 1914 has probably 
postponed this and many other studies by many scholars. 
It would have contained the inscriptions here republished, 
with Deissmann's comments, which are in perfect agreement, 
as I understand, with the view taken in this paper (reprinted 
from the "Expositor").! 

I understand from Dr. Deissmann that he has other views 
to propound with regard to the personality of Loukios, 
which I leave it to him to state at his own time and in his 
own way. As stated in brief they did not convince me, 
but his full argument may be more effective. 

not see Lambertz's article until this chapter was in type, as " Glotta " does not 
come to any library accessible to me except that of the University of Aber 
deen. Brouttaras is also quoted as derived through the Greek from a Latin 
original by another Greek suffix. 

1 It is here enlarged, but the opinion maintained and the line of argu 
ment are the same. The confirmation from " Glotta " came to my knowledge 
by chance in September, 1914. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE FIRSTFRUITS OF ACHAIA 

A GOOD deal of difficulty has been found in this description, 
which is applied by St. Paul in I Corinthians XVI. 15 to the 
household of Stephanas of Corinth. It has been understood 
to imply that Stephanas was the first convert from the 
province of Achaia. How is this to be reconciled with 
Luke's statement about Paul's work in Athens, Acts XVII. 
34 : " certain men also clave unto him and believed, among 
whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, and Damaris," etc. ? 

In the first place the view of the present writer may be 
stated, as this can be done very briefly. Both Luke and 
Paul are perfectly correct. All that is needed is to under 
stand their words. The remarks that have been made in 
an earlier chapter about the meaning of the word " believe " 
in the Acts must be kept in mind. 1 

The evident meaning of Luke is that in Athens there 
was produced on a few persons an effect genuine and deep : 
" they believed ". Paul, however, did not remain at Athens 
to follow it up. No Church was formed there, and in all 
probability no baptism was administered. 

It is, on the other hand, most likely that the brief refer 
ence to Dionysius and Damaris was very significant to 
Luke's readers : they knew what was implied in the naming 
of Dionysius : the " woman named Damaris " carried with 

1 See Chapter xn. 

(385) 25 



386 XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

her many memories to the Christians of the first century. 
This is one of the passages in the Acts where the thought is 
present in the p.uthor's mind that he was writing for readers 
who knew a great deal. He wrote in advanced life about 
A.D. 77-8i, while Titus was ruling the Roman Empire ; J and 
his plan and purpose were calculated for the Church as it was 
after the religion had been proscribed by the Imperial policy ; 
but he wrote with the vivid memory of all that he had seen 
and heard as the events occurred. He had seen much. He 
had heard Paul's own description of the earliest missionary 
journeys. He had listened to Rhoda telling how she, in 
her glad and eager haste to tell the good news, had forgotten 
to open the door to Peter, and how her news was disbelieved 
until they opened and saw him standing in the street. He 
had known Mark and Philip. He made abundant use of 
Mark's Gospel. His excellent sources of information, " as 
they delivered them to me, who were eye-witnesses and 
ministers of the Word," were utilized to meet the situation 
produced by the Imperial action ; and the narrative was in 
a very advanced stage (Book I, the Gospel, being complete 
and perfect already, and Book II needing only the final 
touches) about A.D. 80. 

Now consider the case of Sergius Paullus, as discussed in 
Chapter XII. Evidently he did not become a member of 
a Christian congregation at Paphos ; the supposition is irre 
concilable with all our conceptions of Roman and Graeco- 
Roman society. When a Church was formed at Paphos 
or elsewhere in Cyprus, the first baptized and received 
member of the congregation would be called, rightly and 
fairly, <( the firstfruits of Cyprus ". 

After the same analogy, it is not Dionysius or Damaris, 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 387. 



XXVI. The First/mils of Achaia. 387 

but Stephanas with his household to whom belongs the 
title " firstfruits of Achaia ". In his case, as in those of 
Lydia and the jailer at Philippi, it may safely be assumed 
that the household consisted of persons who were fully 
under the authority 1 of the head; in other words, the 
children were young. Slaves were attached and obedient 
members of the household, and custom was that the head 
should think for them, and that they should lovingly and 
trustfully follow his advice in such matters. Children, as 
they grew up, thought for themselves according to Greek 
custom. The jailer at Philippi was not likely to have a 
household of slaves ; but he would be likely to have a 
family. See p. 193 and note on p. 186. 

It is hardly reconcilable with Greek or Graeco-Asiatic 
custom that grown-up children should change their religion 
at a moment's notice and at the order even of a parent ; 
nor is it reconcilable with the spirit of freedom which be 
longs to Christianity that grown persons should be received 
for baptism except on their own free and deliberate choice. 
There is no rational and sufficient explanation of those 
cases, except that they are examples of the baptism of 
infants and young children or slaves, for whom the parents 
or master can act as the responsible parties. 

Stephanas, therefore, being baptized with his young 
children and probably his slaves, was "the firstfruits of 
Achaia," in spite of the existence of people at Athens who 
believed, even if we take that word in the full sense of being 
converted to Christianity. 

1 There was in the Greek world nothing comparable to thepatria potestas, 
the absolute authority extending even to power of life and death, which be 
longed to Roman custom and which also existed among the three Gaulish 
tribes of North Galatia (see " Historical Comment, on Galatians," p. 131). 
This Roman power was valid over fully grown children, even married sons. 



388 XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

In the next place, we may examine some other opinions 
that have been advanced on this question. 

It has been maintained that if Luke's statement is true, 
Dionysius or Damaris or some Athenian must have been 
the first convert in the province, and therefore either Luke's 
narrative is inconsistent with Paul's words and therefore 
incorrect, or the phrase " firstfruits of Achaia " has not the 
meaning that has usually been taken from it. 

The former supposition we must forthwith dismiss : we 
hold that Luke is trustworthy and that his account is neces 
sarily in perfect agreement with Paul's words, provided 
that both are correctly translated and understood The 
latter opinion is followed by Dr. Steinmann, formerly a 
Privatdocent in the University of Breslau. 1 He holds 
that Achaia as the province did not include Athens, and he 
draws from this a number of inferences which I have not 
succeeded in properly understanding (as they seem mutually 
contradictory), but which have the appearance of being far 
from consistent with our opinion of the high value of both 
Luke's and Paul's evidence. 

Dr. Steinmann 2 maintains that Athens was not a city of 
the province Achaia, but, as a free and allied city, it was 
outside the province and outside of the Roman Empire, an 
externa civitas, i.e. a foreign and non-Roman city. If this 
were so, many interesting questions would arise, on which 
we need not enter. The previous question is whether Dr. 
Steinmann's statement, that in Roman usage Athens was 
not part of Achaia, can be accepted as correct : he admits, 

1 I sent a copy of an article on the same subject, less complete than the 
chapter here printed, to his address in the University ; but the packet 
was returned after some time to me, marked " Unbekannt " and " Adresse 
nicht ermittelt ". 

2 " Leserkreis des Galaterbriefes," pp. 88-94. 



XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 389 

of course, that popular Greek usage might have loosely 
called Athens a city of the province, but infers that, if St. 
Paul spoke in that way, he followed, not proper Roman, 
but loose and inaccurate Greek custom. 

This matter, if considered at all, must be treated on a 
considerable scale. It opens up questions of Roman ad 
ministration in the East, and of the varying rights of different 
classes of cities and bodies of population in the provinces, 
which are rather complicated. The Roman task of govern 
ing a number of cities possessing very diverse privileges was 
not a simple one, but required great freedom and variety in 
the practical application of the fundamental Roman prin 
ciples. If the matter is opened up at all, the character of 
that complicated system has to be indicated. It might 
perhaps be better to leave it to a more convenient occasion ; 
but, on the whole, there are advantages in treating it here, 
in order to form some picture of the relation in which the 
provinces stood to Rome in the Imperial system. 

As was stated in Chap. XV. the keystone of the Imperial 
system was the worship of the Emperor (in the strict and 
original usage, of Rome and the Emperor as the embodiment 
of the majesty of Rome). The unity of the province lay in 
the association of all the units composing the province in 
this worship. The province was thus made into a single 
organism ; all the parts met together in this ritual. Simi 
larly, as has been pointed out in Chap. XV., the popula 
tion of a great Imperial estate was united in an associa 
tion or religious fraternity for the worship of the Lord 
Emperor. 

Ancient thought demanded inexorably a religious bond 
to hold together every association, as has been repeatedly 
shown. None of the old national religions could be of any 
service in this case. All were national and separatist, though 



390 XX VL The Firstfrmts of Achaia. 

only two carried their separatist principles to such a degree 
as to involve a hostile relation to the Imperial unity ; these 
were Druidism, which was proscribed by Claudius as hostile, 1 
and Judaism, which obtained a peculiar toleration and was 
allowed to continue as a separatist cult. 2 Still all confined 
themselves to narrow circles of worshippers. None had any 
positive idea to impart, except Judaism and the shadowy and 
barely animate pretensions of the Mysteries. None could 
in any way be made into a bond to hold together the unity 
of each individual province and of the Empire as a whole. 
The Emperor Augustus caught the idea that the majesty, 
the wisdom, and the beneficent power of Rome might form 
the unifying bond ; and the people first of the East and then 
of the West insisted on giving personality to this idea by 
regarding it as embodied in the reigning monarch. Thus 
the system grew. 3 

A national and racial character for the province was 
aimed at in the East, where the Greek term " Nation " 
(!0z>os) was applied to the provincial unity. Asia, with its 
numerous races and stocks and once separate countries, 
was "the Nation Asia" (77 'Aaia TO edvo<t): so Lycia, 
Galatia, etc. ; and ra avveyyvs edvij was used as the official 
translation of adiacentes provindae, " the neighbouring pro 
vinces " . This use, however, though common in epigraphy 
and found even in historians, is really only an extension of 
the " genealogical fiction ". 

1 Christianity was proscribed de iure by Vespasian, but not de facto in the 
fullest way till Decius and again by Diocletian. 

2 Hence " the nation of the Jews " was permitted to continue as a separate 
body in the great cities, so to say outside of the Empire and yet in the Em 
pire. The very term " nation" was anti-Roman and hostile (see p. 56), but 
it was permitted to the Jews to preserve the term and the legal fact ; and yet 
they were treated as subjects. Nothing is more wonderful than the position 
and treatment of the Jews under the Empire. 

3 " Church in the Roman Empire," pp. 191, 323, 354, etc. 



XXVL The Firstfruits of Achaia. 391 

In passing it may be mentioned that friends have asked 
why I did not reply to Dr. Steinmann's book on the Gala- 
tian question, which is written to a large extent in polemic 
against my views. I waited till time and fresh discoveries 
should make their reply on my behalf. The constitution of 
the province Galatia has been gradually revealed, and many 
difficulties have been cleared away. The subject, however, 
is an extremely complicated one, and can never be under 
stood properly without a great deal of careful and minute 
study and a considerable knowledge of Roman provincial 
administration. 

In respect of such matters I regret to be obliged to say 
that Dr. Steinmann's book leaves much to be desired ; and 
I cannot find in it any argument to which I could reply 
without a long and detailed discussion of Roman law in the 
Eastern provinces generally and in Galatia specially. On 
one page after another I find in his book statements at 
which I can only wonder. It is unprofitable to carry on a 
discussion when there is so little in which we are agreed. 
In regard to the most fundamental facts and principles of 
Roman administration in the East I should have to express 
my dissent from him. If discussion is to be profitable, there 
must be some comnjpn foundation on which we could build 
up, detail by detail, a serviceable structure of reasoned know 
ledge. Otherwise nothing can be gained by controversy. 
Argument should be constructive, and should leave the reader 
wiser and more able to appreciate ancient life than he was. 

Of this hopeless disagreement about the facts of Roman 
administration examples occur broadcast. At present we 
shall take one which has no connexion with the Galatian 
question : Athens and the province Achaia and the mean 
ing of " firstfruits of Achaia ". To discuss this needs much 
consideration of elementary principles. 



392 XXVI . The P\rstfruits of Achaia. 

Here we are entirely outside of the province Galatia. Dr. 
Steinmann, however, cannot shake off the thought of Gala 
tia. He goes into the question, not for its own sake, but in 
order to bang the South-Galatian theory. With this idea 
his mind is prepossessed, and consequently he has not been 
so careful about matters of Roman history and antiquities 
as he otherwise doubtless would have been. 

Dr. Steinmann's conclusion, p. 94, seems to amount to 
this, that, if Paul used the term Achaia to include Athens, 
he was not in accordance with Roman ideas and custom, 
because the Roman usage of the term Achaia, as he thinks, 
excluded Athens. 1 Accordingly, he considers that Achaia 
meant the country of Greece, and that this was an old 
Greek pre-Roman usage, but he quotes no proof of such 
Greek usage, and it is contrary to everything that I know 
or have been taught from childhood. 2 

What I have always learned and understood to be the 
accepted teaching is that to the Greeks of pre-Roman time 
Achaia was the strip of land on the north coast of the Pelo 
ponnesus, between Arcadia and the Gulf of Corinth, and 
that Corinth itself was not a part of Achaia in the Greek 
sense. The use of " Achaia " for Greece as a whole is 
Roman, due to popular inaccurate usage, like the Roman 
use of " Asia " for the kingdom of the Attalids and there 
after for the Roman province : the Romans spoke of Greece 
as " Achaia," because the Achaean League included most 
of Greece, and they gave this name to the province. 

Dr. Steinmann simply assumes without any proof, con- 

1 " Athen von der roemischen Provinz Achaja ausgeschlossen war." 
2 He actually quotes Pausanias's express statement, vn. 16, 7, that the 
Romans used the name Achaia in the sense in which the Greeks used Hellas, 
and Pausanias's correct explanation of the origin of this Roman usage. He 
does not realize that Pausanias is denying what he is asserting about the 
Greek sense of the name Achaia. 



XX VL The Firstfruits of Achaia. 393 

trary to all modern teaching, that this wide use of the term 
Achaia was " beyond all doubt a very ancient " (Greek) 
custom. 1 From every statement in this conclusion and 
every step in the argument I would dissent : and, especially, 
the method of substituting a " beyond doubt " for the quota 
tion of ancient authorities is unscientific. 

On p. 1 08 Dr. Steinmann says that in Pauline usage 
"Achaia is equivalent either to Corinth or to the whole of 
Greece, including Athens " a pretty wide choice, destruc 
tive of any belief that the learned scholar has reached any 
clear geographical view " and therefore is in no case fully 
coincident with the Roman official circuit of the province ". 
Now Dr. Steinmann proves at considerable length that 
Athens was a " free " and " allied " city (libera andfcederata). 
This proof was unnecessary ; every one admits the fact, 
which is a matter of the most rudimentary knowledge. 
Here, where all text-books agree and give the ancient 
evidence, Dr. Steinmann repeats the proof. Where he 
differs from the accepted opinion, he merely says " doubt 
less," and quotes no evidence. 

The question which really matters is whether such " free " 
and " allied " cities were or were not reckoned as cities of 
the province. That concerns not Athens alone, but a 
number of other "free" and "allied" cities. It is no 
answer to the question to quote at length the privileges of 
such cities. Those privileges were honourable and highly 
esteemed. Governors of the province dismissed their 
lictors when they entered a free city. The citizens did not 
pay tribute. 2 The lawsuits in a free city were decided ac 
cording to its own laws by the elected magistrates. 

This whole subject requires retreatment, and a well-in- 

1 " Ohne Zweifel sehr alt war." 

2 We assume that all liberce. civitates were also immunes. 



394 XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

formed discussion would have been welcome. Dr. Steinmann, 
however, follows mainly Marquardt's " Handbuch," and 
quotes none of the more recent investigations on constitu 
tional and legal points. He uses Mommsen's History, but 
not his later articles. These later studies, along with 
Liebenam's " Stadteverwaltung im roem. Kaiserreiche," and 
Mitteis' works, etc., are the basis for the following remarks. 
The privileges granted to the free cities, according to a 
common Roman method of governing its subjects, had 
a great show of honour, but the Government set them 
aside as often as it chose. Contributions and taxes were 
frequently imposed on the free cities, at the discretion of 
the governor or of the central administration. Free cities 
were degraded at any time when it suited Government to 
do so. 1 

This "freedom " was, after all, little more than nominal. 
Holm, IV. 147, remarks that modern ideas of independence 
should not be introduced into the libertas of the "free" 
cities. It was absolutely inconsistent with Roman system 
to have a state within a state. The " free " state could 
exercise its freedom and use its laws only in so far as con 
duced to the well-being of the Empire. 2 "Even in the 
East, where Roman favour allowed many privileges to exist, 
it was evident that this ' freedom ' meant really nothing, 
since the word of any Roman governor could nullify it" 8 
When Maximus was sent to govern Achaia, Pliny wrote to 
him, vill. 1 4, urging him not to deprive Athens and Sparta 
of that nominal and shadowy freedom which they had 
possessed. 

The right of " free " cities to govern according to their 

1 See Liebenam, p. 466. 

2 " Bin Staat im Staate war undenkbar," Liebenam, p. 472. 

3 Liebenam, p. 473. 



XXVI . The Firstfruits of Achaia. 395 

own laws caused after all no very great practical difference. 
True, the ordinary cities of the province had to accept 
the Roman law, but in practice Rome allowed great in 
fluence to local custom in the civilized Eastern provinces. 
Hence the law as administered in these provinces was a 
sort of compromise between strict Roman law and native 
custom. In some notable cases extraordinary care was 
taken to act according to the usage of the city. On this 
subject see Mitteis' " Reichsrecht und Volksrecht " and 
later works ; also Liebenam, p. 466 ff., and the authorities 
quoted by him. I have followed Mitteis in my " Historical 
Commentary on Galatians " (see the Preface). 

As a proof that Athens and other allied cities were outside 
the province, Dr. Steinmann quotes the fact that the 
Areopagus Court decided a criminal case in the reign of 
Tiberius. Doubtless it did so ; but that was the privilege 
of all free cities : we know it at Amisos in the province of 
Bithynia-Pontus, from Pliny's correspondence with the 
Emperor Trajan, while he was acting as governor. It is 
certainly wholly inconsistent with Pliny's conception of his 
duties and power to say that Amisos was outside of his pro 
vince : he had distinct duties there, but these were narrower 
than in the ordinary cities of the province (civitates stipen 
diaries). The question as to the limit of his power in 
Amisos exercised his mind a little, but there was no 
question that he had power there. He was doubtful 
whether he should prohibit the continuance of clubs (eranoi) 
in Amisos, and consulted Trajan on this point. The 
Emperor's reply was that Amisos should be allowed to 
keep its clubs, if they were in accordance with its own 
laws. A hint, however, is appended that the proconsul 
should keep himself informed whether the clubs tended to 
encourage riotous conduct and unlawful assemblies. The 



396 XXVI. The First/mils of Achaia. 

Emperors always reserved the power of annulling the rights 
of a civitas fcederata, if this seemed advisable for Imperial 
interests ; J and, if clubs in Amisos were found conducive to 
disorder, the analogy of Imperial policy in other cases 
shows that the governor would be directed to interfere and 
probably to do away with the agreement (fcedus). But 
Amisos was one of the Pontic cities associated in the cult 
of the Emperors by the province ; and no more conclusive 
proof can be given that it ranked officially as part of the 
province : see p. 389. 

Dr. Steinmann tries to demonstrate that " Athen gehore 
gar nicht zur Provinz Achaia ". There is, of course, a 
pedantic sense, almost a legal fiction, in which this state 
ment is true under the Empire. 2 In certain matters of 
courtesy and form the fiction of independence of the " allied " 
and the " free " cities (civitates federate and liberce) was 
maintained. Marquardt points out that their autonomy 
was rather shadowy I need not go into details but he 
did not know, what is now proved, that, although the free 
city administered its own law there was always allowed an 
appeal from the judgment of the city to the Roman gover 
nor of the province, and that even if an appeal were made 

1 As Marquardt says, p. 74, Augustus deprived several civitates feeder ata 
of their libertas, because they were using it in a way dangerous to public 
peace, Suet., " Aug.," 47. Byzantium was originally feeder at a (Tac. " Ann.," 
xu. 62) : after the province Macedonia was formed, Byzantium was subject to 
the governor on the footing not offcederata but of libera civitas (Cic. " in 
Pis.," in. 6). In A.D. 53 it was subject to Bithynia and was stipendiaria 
(Tacitus, I.e.) ; but Pliny then calls it libera (" Nat. Hist.," iv. n). Vespasian 
deprived it of libertas (Suet., "Vesp.," 8), which it regained and kept till Severus 
punished the city for a short time (Dio., LXXIV. 14). 

2 Dr. Steinmann applies facts and principles of the Republican period re 
specting the allied and the free cities too directly to the Imperial time. It 
has now become clear that the Imperial administration interfered very freely 
with the rights of these cities, whenever there was any occasion ; the tendency 
of discovery is to illustrate this truth. 



XXVI. The First fruits of Achaia. 397 

within the allied or free city to the Emperor, it could only 
take effect through the governor and with his sanction. This 
is known for both Achaia and Asia ; and is doubtless true 
of all provinces. I quote Mommsen in " Zft der Savigny- 
St. f. Rechtsgesch.," 1890, pi. 36 f. : " es ist fiir die Stellung 
der freien Stddte von Wichtigkeit dass sowohlvon A then wie 
von Kos nicht bloss an den Kaiser sondern selbst an den 
Proconsul appellirt werden kann. . . . Nicht minder bemer- 
kenswerth aber ist es, was Ramsay mit Recht der Inschrift 
entnahm, dass der Staathalter danach der Appellation an der 
Kaiser und ilberhaupt wohl der Beschickung des Kaisers 
aus seiner Provinz Folge zu geben wohl berechtigt, aber nicht 
verpflichtet ist." * Why did not Dr. Steinmann quote this 
important fact, which puts a very different aspect on the 
whole question ? 

I do not fancy that even Dr. Steinmann would press the 
fiction of the freedom of allied cities to the extent of main 
taining that they as allies of Rome (fcederatcs civitates\ and 
standing outside of the Empire (externce\ were independent 
of the Emperor. The Emperor was the ultimate fountain 
of law for them ; and any matter could be appealed from 
the Athenian courts to him. The governor of Achaia is an 
intermediate power ; appeal to him is made from the city 
courts ; and even an appeal to the Emperor, as already said, 
must be sanctioned by the governor of the province before 
it can go forward to Rome. 

To talk about Athens, or Kos, or Amisos, or Tarsus, 
or Mopsouestia in Cilicia, or Sagalassos, or Ephesus, or 
Smyrna, or a host of other cities, as being in any real sense 
outside of the province in which they were situated, is mere 
trifling. Many of them were outside the Roman Empire 

1 Reprinted in his collected papers on legal subjects, Vol. Ill, p. 388. 



398 XXVL The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

in the legal sense that an exile from Rome might live there ; 
they administered their own affairs, indeed, but according 
to a lex civitatis which was fixed by Rome; their rights 
could be diminished or taken away by the Emperor, when 
he thought advisable ; and, although the governor of the 
province did not interfere in their suits, yet any suit could 
be carried before him by appeal. The last is a decisive 
criterion : the governor of the province is the higher power 
in all law-cases, while the city officials are the subordinate 
power. The advantage of being free (libera et immunis) 
was in some respects great, 1 but in other respects this free 
dom would have been positively prejudicial, if it had not 
been in practice completely disregarded. 

Moreover, a grave misconception pervades the whole of 
Dr. Steinmann's reasoning on this subject. He seems 
never to have taken into consideration the great variety of 
privilege and honour and standing which existed among 
the cities and other units out of which a province was 
built up. This inequality of rights is a general feature of 
Roman administration at all periods. Cities were not 
treated all after the same fashion : their civic rights varied 
greatly according to their individual character and ser 
vices to Rome, or according to historical circumstances. 
As in Italy in the period from 270 to 89 B.C., 2 so in 
the Eastern provinces in the first and second centuries, 

1 Marquardt points out that the privilege of sheltering a Roman exile, 
while an apparent honour as implying independence, sometimes meant 
that the exiled Roman noble made himself a tyrant in the city where he 
settled. 

a The differences of name persisted long after the Social War, 90-89 B.C., 
but the persistence was merely a historical survival : there were still the old 
names and classes, colonise, municipia, praefecturae, and so on, and the old 
names of local town magistrates continued, but there was no real distinction 
of rights. 



XXVI. The First/mils of Ackaia. 399 

there was a wide diversity of rights and standing among 
the cities. The most privileged and honourable class was 
the Colonies : in Greece these were Corinth and Patrae, in 
Macedonia Philippi, in Asia Parium and Troas, in Galatia 
Antioch and the Pisidian colonies. Next came the allied 
cities (fcederatce) which were also free and immune from 
tribute. After them came the cities which were free and 
exempt from tribute (liberce et immunes) without having a 
treaty with Rome. 1 After them came the ordinary cities, 
which were subject to tribute (stipendiaries). Then the 
demoi or peoples which did not possess the Hellenic city 
constitution, but apparently were organized on the Anatolian 
village system (though we really possess hardly any quite 
trustworthy knowledge about them). 2 Last of all come the 
ethne, in which Rostowzew recognizes the population of the 
great Imperial estates, whose position approximated to 
that of serfs (though technically they were free), and whose 
organization continued to be as in the pre-Roman period 
with the Emperor substituted for the ancient lord, whether 
priest or king or noble. 3 The ethnos of a single estate 
lived in villages, each of which had its own headman and 

1 Practically they had the same rights as thefcederatte, but the rights of 
the latter were perhaps a little more permanently certain, and the former 
could not with the same legal right call themselves "friends ". 

2 What we can say about them is largely reconstruction from general con 
siderations, and, though it is highly probable and approximates in part to 
confident assurance, still is not free from hypothesis. 

3 These estates had in many cases belonged to one or other of the 
great Sanctuaries, whose gods were often extremely wealthy as owners of 
lands and lords over the cultivators. Brandis on " Asia " (Pauly-Wissowa, 
" Realencyclop.," p. 1556 f.) gives a different explanation of edv-rj in this usage ; 
but Rostowzew rejects it in his" Studien zur Gesch. des rom. Kolonats," p. 262. 
I go with Rostowzew, though acknowledging that the matter remains un 
certain and hypothetical : but Rostowzew's view seems to me the most 
reasonable and probable. See above, ch. xv. 



400 XX VL The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

officers ; l its administrative arrangements approximated in 
character to the village system of the demoi^ though on an 
apparently less favourable footing, as the demos was 
evidently freer and was called by a Greek constitutional 
name, while the ethne are mentioned last in the list and 
bear a name which was reckoned more alien to Roman 
character and system. 

In such a province as Asia all these various classes of 
states were brought together as the body politic of the pro 
vince. The ethne were hardly perhaps honourable enough 
to be ranked along with the really free peoples. They 
were the private property of the Emperor and looked to 
him, not to the governor of the province. The Emperor's 
procurator and slaves managed their affairs. So far as they 
were outside of the province it was because they were un 
worthy of that honour : they corresponded in status rather 
to the people of client-kingdoms, not yet worthy of admis 
sion to the rank of provincials. Yet these ethne are in cer 
tain inscriptions ranked as members of the Commune 2 of the 
province Asia, and this is the absolute proof that they enter 
into the ultimate and fundamental being of the province. 

In the province of Achaia there were some differences 
from Asia ; but the general principle remains the same. 

Now why should the free and allied cities be deemed by 
Dr. Steinmann too honourable to be degraded into the pro- 

1 The best known estate is that large block of Phrygian land near 
Pisidian Antioch on the north, where a considerable amount of information 
has been found ; this is published and discussed by the writer in " Studies in 
the History of the Eastern Provinces," pp. 304 ff. (the account there given has 
been entirely approved by Rostowzew). Some additional details have been 
found and published in "Journal of Hellenic Studies," 1912, pp. 151 ff. and in 
" Annual of British School Athens," 1912. 

2 The Commune of Asia is the union of the whole province in the worship 
of Rome and the Emperors : at its head are the Asiarchs or High-priests of 
Asia. 



XXVI . The First/mils of Ackaia. 401 

vince, when the Coloniae, whose burgesses were all Roman 
citizens, 1 and which were, so to say, outlying portions of 
Rome itself, serving as garrisons in the province, are ranked 
by him as parts of the province ? That he does so rank 
them, though he never actually says so, is proved by the 
fact that his whole argument is directed to show that, while 
the Colonia Corinth was part of the province, Athens was 
not. 

There is, of course, a sense in which the Coloniae were 
outside the province ; all its citizens, as Romans, were even 
more completely emancipated from subjection to the pro 
vincial governor than the citizens of free and allied 
cities. 

Yet Corinth was the capital and official residence of the 
proconsul of Achaia : Lugudunum (Lyon) occupied the 
same position in the Three Gauls : Pisidian Antioch was 
the military centre and a sort of secondary capital of 
the southern part of the province Galatia. It was a special 
honour to a province to contain one or more Coloniae 
which represented the full Roman qualification as the 
ideal in front of the province. The province, ideally speak 
ing, was a sort of imperfect Rome, i.e. it was a foreign nation 
in the process of being made fully Roman : the Colonia was 
the perfect Rome in visible and material form within the pro 
vince. It would be false to the Roman idea of the province 
to put the Colonia outside of it : the Colonia was the visible 
soul. 

Next, let us look at a closely analogous case. Smyrna 
offers an excellent parallel to Athens. Smyrna is given by 
Marquardt as only a free, but not an allied city. He has, 

1 The incolae, who had not Roman citizenship in a colonia, were not bur 
gesses and had no place in the popular assembly : they were mere residents, 
yet they had privileges of their own. 

26 



402 XXVI. The Firstfruits of Ackaia. 

however, omitted the evidence of Cicero in his Eleventh 
Philippic, II. 5 (which is quite conclusive), "a city which 
ranks as one of our most faithful and most ancient allies ". 
The account of the Asian War and the treaty that ended it 
in Livy, XXXVII. f., must be understood as implying a treaty, 
though the treaty (being of older date) is not actually men 
tioned there. 

As an allied state Smyrna had the right of sheltering 
exiles from Rome, i.e. exiles who were expelled from the 
Roman Empire could go to live there and had the right of 
being received as citizens. This constituted it a civitas 
extera, i.e. legally outside the Roman Empire. 1 The same 
right belonged to Thessalonica and Cyzicus and Patrae ; 2 
but no one, so far as I am aware, has ever thought or argued 
that these were not parts of the provinces Macedonia and 
Asia and Achaia, or not parts of the Empire. 

As regards Smyrna, Tacitus has preserved the report of 
the argument which it laid before the Senate in support of 
its claim to construct a provincial temple dedicated to 
Tiberius and Livia and the Senate. 3 Now Smyrna was the 
oldest ally and the most faithful friend of Rome in the East, 4 
occupying an honourable position corresponding to Mar 
seilles (Massalia) in the West. Its chief glory and its special 
characteristic as a city of the Empire was its faithfulness. 
It laid its case before the Senate, because it was a city of 
the province. It had no standing in this matter except as 
a city of the province. The Commune of the province 5 had 
resolved to have this temple as a new seat of the Imperial 
cult, and eleven cities of the province claimed the honour 

1 Marquardt, p. 80, with note i. 

2 Marquardt, loc. cit. 3 " Annals," iv. 55. 

4 See the chapter on Smyrna in " Letters to the Seven Churches ". 
6 On the Commune see note above on p. 400. 



XXVI. The First/mils of Achaia. 403 

of being chosen as seat of the new temple. Smyrna was 
one of these. It assumes to have the right to compete for 
the privilege : other ten cities claim to be preferred : all 
the eleven present their claim as cities of the province. If 
Smyrna had been extra provinciam, it would not have sought 
an honour which was reserved for the province. If other 
cities had thought that Smyrna was not a city of the 
Province, they would have argued that Smyrna was dis 
qualified as being outside the province. The right to com 
pete is accorded to Smyrna by universal consent 

The argument in this case is the most perfect proof that 
Smyrna was a city of the province Asia, accepted and hon 
oured as such by the Senate and by the whole province. 
Yet, if there were any city which was pre-eminent in the 
East as the friend and ally of Rome, the conspicuous " free 
and allied city " in the fullest sense, that city was Smyrna. 
Athens had massacred its Roman inhabitants, joined Mithra- 
dates, and been besieged and captured by Sulla. In that 
same war Smyrna's sympathy and loyalty to Rome had 
been conspicuous. In the public Assembly the citizens, 
hearing of the sufferings of Sulla's soldiers from the winter 
cold, stripped themselves of their outer garments (which 
were of thicker material), and sent them to the shivering 
Romans. Any honour and privilege that attached to a 
civitas fcederata belonged above all others to Smyrna ; yet 
it claimed the title " first and fairest (city) of (the province) 
Asia," 1 and engraved this on its coins and embodied it in 
its official inscriptions. 

It is instructive to read the earlier chapter (IV. 15) in 
which Tacitus describes the nature of the case. The Com 
mune of Asia was the expression of the provincial unity and 

1 'Ao-fa means the province Asia. 



404 XXVI . The First/mils of Achaia. 

loyalty : it was the association of all the cities of the pro 
vince in the common worship of the Imperial god and his 
divine ancestors. To be a member of the Commune was 
to be a member of the province. 

It would be valueless to argue that Smyrna in its case 
before the Senate appeals to its conduct in 195 B.C., when 
it dedicated the first temple to Rome long before a Roman 
province existed, and to infer that the construction of a 
temple to Tiberius did not prove it to be a city of the pro 
vince. The point, however, is this. Smyrna might have 
built its own special temple to the Emperor, and this would 
not prove any provincial connexion ; but the temple, which 
it was finally selected by the Senate to build, was a temple 
of (the province) Asia, and only cities of the province could 
have such a temple. A special legate of the proconsul of 
Asia was appointed to superintend the building. 

Dr. Steinmann, p. 94, is possessed with the strange idea 
that Achaia could not acquire a Roman name until A.D. 44, 
because it had previously been classed with Macedonia 
under the same governor, and was only in that year separated 
from Macedonia and given to the senate as a province. 1 
But even when it was under the same governor as Macedonia 
it was the Roman province Achaia, and not merely a part 
of Macedonia. The province was Macedonia et Achaia 2 
(Tac. Ann. I. 80, V. 10; Dio Cass. LVIII. 25) : Cicero often 
speaks of Achaia, meaning the Roman province. 

Again, if free cities were outside the province, not merely 

1 He forgets that it was made a separate province in 27 B.C. He also 
forgets that the constitution of Achaia was regulated by the lex Mummia, 
imposed by its conqueror in 146 B.C. (Liebenam, p. 469), whereas Macedonia 
was regulated by the lex Aemilia, 167 B.C. 

2 Like Lycia et Pamphylia, two provinces under one governor : so the 
united Galatia and Cappadocia between A.D. 74 and 106 or later, and the 
Tres Eparchiae. 



XXVI . The First/mils of Achaia. 405 

Athens, but also Sparta, all the Eleutherolacones, Delphi, 
Thespiae, Tanagra, Abae, Pharsalus, Elatea, Patrae, Nico- 
polis, Mothone, Pale and Pallantion, also the Ozolian 
Locrians and Amphissa, 1 were so. Brandis in Pauly- 
Wissowa, I. 191, adds Thyrreion (an allied city), and Plataea 
(a free city), and states that it is false to think that Achaia 
did not become a province until 27 B.C. : it had been a pro 
vince from 146 B.C. 

In A.D. 67 Nero made all Greece free. The freedom re 
leased the country from taxation, but it would be absurd to 
suppose that this took Greece out of the Empire : moreover 
this act was a freak and not a sober Roman device for 
government. 

The nature of that sham freedom appears from the fact 
that the democratic constitution was suppressed in the free 
cities, and a timocratic and oligarchic organization was 
substituted by Rome. 

In C.I.L. VIII. 7059 an official is mentioned who was 
acting as governor in Athens, Thespiae, Plataeae, and 
Thessaly simultaneously, and Dr. Brandis infers from this 
that Thessaly belonged to the same province as Athens, 
Thespiae and Plataeae, i.e. he takes those cities as being all 
included in the province of Achaia. 

The criticism to which Dr. Steinmann's argument about 
Athens exposes itself is this. Whereas Marquardt's account 
of Achaia accommodates itself naturally to the new evi 
dence (of which a brief outline has been given in these 
pages), Steinmann's assertions are in contradiction with it ; 
and yet the latter founds his argument solely on Mar- 
quardt, and quotes hardly any other authority. The reason 
for this is that Marquardt confines himself to stating 

1 Marquardt gives two inconsistent lists, p. 325, 10, and p. 328, 2. 



406 XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

facts and their necessary implication, and therefore the 
recently discovered facts come in to complete the picture 
which he draws in bare outline ; Steinmann, on the con 
trary, selects certain facts from Marquardt to suit a pre 
conceived purpose ; he groups them to produce a certain 
effect ; he slurs over the facts stated by Marquardt which 
tell against him, mentioning some of them without pointing 
out their bearing on his case ; and his apparently most 
telling arguments are really unproved assertions regard 
ing matters of which we have no knowledge (owing to 
the lack of data), which is false and unscientific method. 
The consequence is that the newly discovered facts are 
absolutely inconsistent with Steinmann's opinion. Let 
any person read through Marquardt's non-partisan state 
ment in the light of the new knowledge, and he will see 
for himself that this is so. 

While Marquardt mentions that, so far as the right of 
sheltering Roman exiles was concerned, certain cities in the 
provinces were externce, he never applies this survival of 
ancient right as a proof that those cities were outside of the 
province. In practice he always treats these provincial 
allied cities under their province, showing his opinion that 
they after all belonged to it.; and he lays little stress on their 
special standing, but calls it a mere shadow of freedom. 
He expressly calls Amisus the most easterly city of the 
province Bithynia (p. 350), and gives its municipal custom 
as a proof of Roman behaviour towards provincial cities 
(p. 143); and so on. Only with regard to Athens does 
he use an expression that might be misinterpreted in too 
sweeping a sense about the shadowy liberty 1 that was left 
to it, and says that it was exempt from the authority of 

1 Pliny, " Epist.," vm. 24; Dio. Chrys., n. p. 200 R. ; Plutarch, "praec. 
ger. reip.," 32, 8 (quoted by Marquardt, p. 86). 



XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 407 

the proconsul : the authorities on whom he relies are not 
sufficiently clear to prove this in its full sense, and Mommsen 
(quoted by Steinmann) expresses the fact more carefully : 
"Athens was not under the fasces of the proconsul," i.e. 
when he entered the city the proconsul was not preceded 
by axe-bearing lictors. The fact that cases were carried on 
appeal from courts in Athens to the hearing of the proconsul 
proves that the city was not really exempt from his authority. 

Marquardt mentions that Athens differed from the rest 
of the province Achaia in never using the provincial era ; 
and Steinmann religiously follows him, quoting this as a 
very weighty proof that Athens was exempt from the pro 
vincial Roman system of dating. There is nothing in this 
antiquated fallacy. (l) There prevailed extreme and 
capricious variety in regard to chronology in Hellenistic 
and Hellenic cities; and Athens, like many other Greek 
cities, dated by its own magistrates. (2) No provincial era 
was used in Achaia, 1 and neither Athens nor any other city 
of the province dated by a provincial era. 2 This piece of 
evidence is worse than valueless ; it is fictitious. A more 
careful study of discoveries regarding Achaian facts is needed 
before writing about the province. 

Even in regard to the chief glory of Athens, the University 
and its administration, the Emperor interfered as he pleased. 
It was required that the four masters of the Schools should 
be Roman citizens ; and this regulation, according to 
Mommsen, must certainly have been made early in the 
Empire and probably by Augustus. 3 The regulation was 

1 Some rare cases are known in which a provincial era seemed to be used 
by a city of Achaia, but these are now better explained ; the dating is not 
from the foundation of the province, but from a different era. 

2 Kaestner de Aeris, 66 f., Kubitschek Aera in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Enc. 

3 Mommsen in " Zft, d. Savigny St. f. Rechtsgesch.," 1891, p. 152 f, 



408 XXVI. The First/mils of Achaia. 

relaxed by Hadrian, who permitted the head of the Epicu 
rean School (and probably the others on the same principle) 
to be chosen from all, whether Roman citizens or non- 
Romans. This we learn from his rescript, which was dis 
covered and first published in 1890, and immediately 
commented on by Diels, Mommsen, and others. 1 

Dr. Steinmann's long discussion of the rank of Athens, 
and its relation to the province, therefore, is vitiated by 
neglect of important facts. The neglect was, of course, 
unintentional : he would not willingly have passed over any 
fact bearing on his subject, as his whole intention is to be 
judicial and complete. But he simply follows a book pub 
lished in 1 88 1, taking it as his final statement of the law, 
though anyone who studied Roman law or Roman history, 
or the Eastern provincial administration, would have put 
him on the line of modern investigation, if he had sought 
to learn what is known on the subject. 

Other considerations of a general character point to the 
same conclusion. It was a great source of wealth to any 
city that the governor should reside, or should even hold 
the assizes, in it, 2 and any free or allied city which had the 
opportunity would not have wasted it by vainly pleading 
that it was outside the province. Many free and allied 
cities were seats of conventus : Thessalonica and Antioch 
were always the residence of the governors of Macedonia 
and Syria, Ephesus and Tarsus of the governors of Asia 
and Cilicia. Ephesus and Tarsus and Smyrna and 

1 " Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophic," iv. 487 f. ; " Zft. d. Savigny St. f. 
Rechtsgesch.," 1891, p. 152 f. It is an interesting fact that the students of 
the School co-operated in the selection of a Scholarch (as was previously 
known), and were even empowered to depose an unworthy Professor and 
appoint a successor to him (which was revealed by the newly discovered 
inscription containing this rescript). 

2 On this enrichment see, for example, " Cities of St. Paul," p. 273. 



XXVI . The Firstfruits of Achaia. 409 

Laodiceia on the Lycus were conventus from the beginning. 
In Ephesus (Acts XIX.) the Secretary (ypap/jLareixi) warned 
the people in the theatre that if they did not dissolve this 
irregular assembly (one which was not permitted in the 
charter of the city), 1 the city would be called to account 
(obviously before the proconsul, whom the Secretary has 
just previously mentioned as the fountain of justice). 

Dr. Steinmann admits that several allied and free cities 
of this class were the residence of the governor of the prov 
ince, and that in others the Roman assizes (conventus} were 
held by the governor. These admitted facts give away his 
case. What meaning can be attached to his statement that 
those free cities were outside of the province, if these facts 
are true? It was the basis of provincial administration 
that a governor could not reside outside his province, or 
exercise his power legally anywhere except in his province. 
Now at the conventus the governor exercised the full and 
absolute authority over the provinces ; he represented the 
judicial dignity and the power of Rome. If Athens or 
Smyrna or any of the other free and allied cities were out 
side the province, the governor could not possibly exercise 
his supreme 'judicial authority or fix his residence perma 
nently in any of them. To be the residence of the governor 
of the province, a city must be in the province. 

It is vain to attempt to bolster up the case by pleading 
that Thessalonica and the other cities which we have men 
tioned were not allied, but belonged to the lower class of 
free cities. The rights of the two classes, however, were 
the same ; 2 the superiority of the allied cities lay in the 
more assured permanence of the rights. The question that 

1 v6p.os in the Acts : lex civitatis was the technical Roman term. 

2 Marquardt asserts this quite positively, p. 80 : see also Mommsen, 
" Staatsrecht," in. p. 654, n. 4, and 658. 



4 io XXVI. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 

concerns us is whether these rights caused the city that 
possessed them to be ranked outside the province or not ; 
and although Ephesus or Tarsus might lose its rights more 
easily than Athens or Amisos, yet so long as it possessed 
those rights, the effect on status was the same. In fact, 
allied cities are frequently described simply as " free " (for 
example, so always by Pliny) ; and the occurrence of a city 
in a list of liberce civitates does not prove that it did not 
belong to the other and higher class of federates} 

Except in certain quite unimportant details, therefore, 
the free and allied cities were regularly counted as cities of 
the province. They ranked along with the other cities as 
members of the Commune or Association of provincial cities. 
Ordinary usage and, so far as is known, Roman custom 
ranked them as provincial cities ; they were places into 
which the governor of the province entered in performance 
of his duty, although he respected the rights which they 
possessed. Paul and Luke thought and spoke of Athens 
and Smyrna and other free cities as cities of Achaia or Asia, 
and they were justified by Roman custom. When Paul 
speaks of a Corinthian as the " firstfruits of Achaia," he is 
thinking of the province, and his expression is in perfect 
agreement with Roman and general custom. The meaning 
of the words must be sought in the direction indicated at 
the beginning of the chapter. 

Note (p. 387). The nature of the household, and the 
relation of slaves to the master, come up constantly from 
many points of view in our study of Christianity amid its 
social surroundings under the early Empire; and correct 
conceptions on this subject are essential to a correct view 
of early Christian history. As to slavery we must always 

1 See Mommsen, loc. cit. 



XXV I. The Firstfruits of Achaia. 411 

remember that in Rome a man's most trusted and faithful 
servants were his slaves ; and that there was a strong pre 
judice against all paid labour in every department as un 
trustworthy. Paid servants were " hirelings," l who had 
no personal interest in their duty, but looked to get money 
alone. We are now-a-days accustomed to hate slavery as 
barbarous and degrading to all concerned, alike owners and 
slaves ; and in the state in which the institution of slavery 
has been practised in modern times, this hatred was fully 
justified. So also in the Roman system the application of 
slave labour in great gangs to the cultivation of large 
estates, a custom learned from the Carthaginians, was an 
unmingled evil, and produced many permanent and in 
creasing disorders and diseases in the body politic. House 
hold slavery, however, was a different and a comparatively 
humane institution ; and the faithfulness of slaves to a 
master, and the general custom of trusting them with the 
most important and confidential business, bear witness to 
this. The whole body of slaves of the Emperor formed 
the " household of Caesar " (Philippians IV. 22) ; and, as we 
have seen on the Imperial estates (see Chap. XV.), their 
Imperial master was their God and they were his people. 

The dislike of the Romans for " hired workers " may be 
illustrated in modern times by the German feeling that an 
army raised by voluntary enlistment is a mere force of 
mercenaries, while an army raised by conscription and 
national service stands on a far higher level of duty. So 
Naaman's Hebrew slave girl was genuinely interested in 
his welfare, 2 Kings V. 3. 

1 Mercennarii. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE PAULINE CHURCHES IN THE THIRD CENTURY 

THE great importance of the Churches of the Two Regions 
(as Luke would probably have called them), i.e. the 
Churches of Galatia, stands out more and more impress 
ively as we comprehend better the Acts and the Epistles of 
Paul. Paul gives a brief account of his work in founding 
those Churches of Phrygia and Lycaonia, when he writes 
to Timothy : " Thou didst follow my teaching, conduct, 
purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, patience, persecutions, 
sufferings : what things befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, 
at Lystra : and out of them all the Lord delivered me. 
Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall 
suffer persecution." 

This passage to Timothy is a rsum of the teaching of 
Paul's second visit to those three cities, as described in the 
Acts : " They returned to Lystra, and to Iconium and 
Antioch, 1 confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting 
them to continue in the faith, and that through many 
tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God ". 

Here are two brief statements of the same period of 
teaching in the same three stages: (i) confirmatory in 
struction ; (2) the inevitableness of persecution for all 
Christians without exception ; (3) the final deliverance. 
Both statements come from Paul. One is written by him 

1 Acts xiv. 21-3. See p. 422. 

(412) 



XXVII. Pauline Churches in Third Century- 413 



direct to Timothy. The other comes to us indirectly 
through Luke from Paul's mouth ; and Luke associates 
himself with the statement of the second and third stages 
by using the pronoun " we". This is not a case similar to 
the later " we-passages," which are incidental to travel and 
indicate the personal presence of the historian. In this 
place the historian identifies himself in spirit and experi 
ence with the teaching of Paul as regards persecution. It 
is pointed out elsewhere * how much importance belongs to 
this phrase, in which the deep emotion of Luke breaks 
through his usual self-suppression. 

That this teaching, as summarized in 2 Timothy III. 10- 
12, belongs to the second visit of Paul to the Galatian 
Churches, is clear from the omission of Derbe. Paul turned 
back from Derbe to revisit Lystra and Iconium and Antioch 
after a considerable absence. In this passage Paul recurs 
to that visit, and to the teaching then given. That is the 
occasion that rose to his memory in the last message to 
Timothy, when he knew he was near the gate of death. It 
is not so much the first visit and the conversion, as the 
second visit and the confirmation, that suits his present pur 
pose. He had not been in Derbe the second time on that 
journey, and his teaching there had been of the order of 
conversion combined with farewell messages. Hence Derbe 
is omitted at this moment. 

Paul also recalls to Timothy's memory that he had fore 
warned the three Churches against " evil men and impostors," 
who " shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being de 
ceived ". In his letter to the Galatians, also, he says that 
he had by word of mouth forewarned the Galatians against 
evil men "that they who practise such things shall not 

1 " St. Paul the Traveller," p. 123. 



414 XXVII. The Pauline Churches 

inherit the kingdom of God" and against false teachers 
(i.e. impostors) " as we said before, so say I now again : if 
any man preacheth unto you any Gospel other than that 
which ye received, let him be anathema". 1 

The striking agreement between the words to Timothy, 
to tke Galatians, and to Luke, constitutes a proof of real 
value that the same mind lies behind them all as the common 
source and origin. 

We see how largely those Churches bulked in the mind 
of Paul and of Luke. We observe the great space which 
Luke allots to them in his highly compressed history. We 
notice that Paul's feet turn back again and again to the 
cities, and his memory recalls them in the imminence of 
death. Now what became of those Churches? What was 
their future history ? How did they die out ? This ques 
tion must arise in every mind. Was all Paul's care and 
anxiety for them lavished on a niggardly and grudging 
soil ? or did their future deeds repay his toil ? Did they 
desert his Gospel " so quickly " (Gal. I. 6), or were they re 
called by his Epistle to a right mind ? 

If there is any historic value in the second letter to 
Timothy, the four Churches 2 were Paul's to the end of his 
life. His letter to them was successful. Apart from any 
other argument, this reference alone furnishes conclusive 
testimony. 3 Later a veil falls over them. History has 
almost forgotten them. 

Only in recent years archaeological evidence is restoring 
to us some slight outline of their fate. The number of 

1 Galatians v. 21, i. 9, 10. 

2 I add Derbe, though Paul's purpose omits it to Timothy. 

3 Even those critics who do not accept the three Pastoral Epistles as Paul's 
composition, are almost all agreed that at least Second Timothy is in part 
genuine, and that its historical testimony is trustworthy. 



in the Third Century. 415 

inscriptions which remain in those regions and the close 
adjoining districts is very large : they begin in the second 
century, and become numerous in the third and in Lycaonia 
still more so in the fourth. 

Their history was one of " tribulation," ending in death. 
The Churches were almost exterminated by Diocletian's 
soldiers. Paul's last word about them was prophetic of 
their fate. They did not recover from the persecution, but 
new people took their place, and a new tone. It is not suit 
able to our present purpose to write the story ; but I add 
one single memorial, which has been discovered since I at 
tempted to sketch the fortunes of the four Pauline Churches. 1 

The memorials of their existence have been recognized by 
the use of certain formulae, and by far the most common of 
these is the appeal to the Judgment of God. 2 

At Synnada, a small but important city of Phrygia, metro 
polis in the Byzantine period of the province Phrygia 
Pacatiana, there was found in June, 1907, and sent to the 
Museum of Broussa, one of the most remarkable of the 
early Christian monuments that are now being slowly dis 
covered, year after year, one here and one there, in Asia 
Minor (chiefly in Phrygia and Lycaonia). I have not seen 
it, but take all the description that is here given from the 
excellent Catalogue of the Museum, published by Monsieur 
G. Mendel, formerly of the French School of Athens. 

This monument is a small box of marble, about six inches 
long in its largest part (where the moulding projects most 
prominently) ; and it has the form of a tiny sarcophagus, 
differing only in being higher than its length, whereas 

1 "The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," ch. xii. (last sections). 

2 eerrot wry irpbs r~bv Qe6v : Sdffei \6yov 6etp : and several variations of the 
formula occur. 



4i 6 XXVII. The Pauline Churches 

sarcophagi generally are longer than they measure in height. 1 
With the box, and apparently inside it, though the account 
is not quite clear and explicit on this detail, there were found 
fragments of a skull. On the body and on the lid of the 
sarcophagus are inscriptions : 

(1) On the body: 

ft>3e eva Tpo- Within are Tro- 

(j>ifj,ov TOV /A- phimus the M- 

dprvpos oa-re- artyr's bones. 

a 

(2) On the lid : 

rt9 av Se rav- And whosoever 

TO, ra ocrrea shall these bones 

K0a\ij Trore, ever cast out, 

ea-rat, CLVTW he shall have to 

777)05 r[bv] 6eo- reckon with God. 

v 2 

M. Mendel and Monsieur H. Gregoire, whose opinion 
he quotes, are agreed in regarding this box as having, been 
intended to contain part of the remains of Trophimus from 
Pisidian Antioch, who suffered at Synnada in the short per 
secution under the Emperor Probus, A.D. 276-82. There 
are no two scholars whose opinion on a matter of Christian 
antiquities in Asia Minor ranks higher ; and their agreement 
may be taken as very strong, though, as M. Mendel states, 
Mgr. Duchesne regards the box and the inscriptions as later 
than the fourth century. 3 

1 1 speak of the height including the lid or cover (which is a separate piece 
both in the large sarcophagi and in this small box). 

2 Grammatically the only difficulty lies in eVa, apparently a vulgarism for 
fveffTi or ej/t, a relic of local Phrygian Greek. 

3 1 had always understood that Mgr. Duchesne was one of the first to re 
cognize that this formula was Christian and belonged to the third century. 
Many occurrences of the formula are on the stones dated in that century. 
None are dated later. 



in the Third Century. 417 

MM. Mendel's and Gregoire's arguments are (as they 
both recognize) founded largely on the criteria of the dating 
of Christian inscriptions in Phrygia, which are laid down in 
my "Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," II, chapter XII. 
I have sometimes feared that my views might be considered 
to exaggerate the antiquity of Christian monuments in 
Phrygia ; and it is a great encouragement to find that the 
same reasons which in 1 894 appeared conclusive to me are 
still regarded by two such excellent scholars as decisive. 
The discoveries of the intervening sixteen years have 
distinctly tended to confirm the main lines of my chrono 
logical system. 1 In our view the formula "he shall have 
to reckon with God " belongs to the third century, when 
Christianity, in its public appearance, was still concealing 
itself under cryptic symbols and language. After the 
triumph of Christianity, in the epoch to which Mgr. 
Duchesne assigns this monument, one can hardly suppose 
it possible that no cross or other open sign of religious 
character should appear in the epitaph or on some other 
part of the box. The use of the cross in Christian epitaphs, 
or of some equivalent symbol, became almost universal 
soon after A.D. 34O. 2 

The inscriptions, brief as they are, are marked not merely 
by the presence of an early formula, but by the absence of 
any late and stereotyped Christian expressions. At the 
date to which Mgr. Duchesne assigns the monument, we 

1 The character of the Lycaonian Christian inscriptions of the late third, 
fourth, and fifth centuries, and the principles on which they should be 
tentatively placed in chronological periods, are described in " Luke the 
Physician " (concluding paper). 

2 The usage had not been established when Bishop Eugenius of Laodicea 
of Lycaonia prepared his sarcophagus in A.D. 341 (" Expositor," November, 
1908). 

27 



4i 8 XXVII. The Pauline Churches 

should expect a term like the Holy Martyr. 1 The public 
cult of the holy martyrs was fully established by that time, 
and an adjective of respect could hardly be omitted. In 
that later period this monument would naturally have to 
be regarded as a reliquary made to contain relics (sup 
posed or real) of the Saint, and preserved in a Church for 
general reverence and worship. We can hardly suppose 
that a tomb, with a sepulchral inscription, was made for 
the bones of a person who had died a century and a half, 
or even more, previously. But this monument is marked 
as sepulchral, for that character is guaranteed by scores of 
similar examples. The form of the inscription cannot be 
mistaken. 

Had this box been a reliquary, much greater horror would 
have been expressed at the thought of the bones being 
thrown out, and a more definite and severe punishment 
would probably have been denounced against sacrilege. 
The whole style of the epitaph is early, and has nothing in 
it that recalls the thought or expression characteristic of the 
fifth century or later. 

M. Mendel also points out that the form of the letters in 
the epitaph favours a date distinctly earlier than the fifth 
century : but (as he says) this consideration could not be 
relied on as a quite conclusive proof of date. 

The small size of the box must be explained by the 
supposition that the Christians did not obtain the corpse 
from the Roman authorities. They only succeeded in 
getting a part which they buried. The words which I have 
used in the " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," II. p. 730, 
* ' Rome did not war against the dead ; and the remains 
of the martyrs were allowed to be buried by their friends " 



rov ayiov fuiprvpos. 



in the Third Century. 419 



while true of the case there mentioned and of many 
others are too absolutely expressed ; and exceptions must 
be admitted even in the earlier persecutions, still more in 
the later. The Roman officials observed the eagerness of 
the Christians to get possession of the corpses of the martyrs, 
or even parts of them, and probably dreaded lest some 
mystic or magical power might be imparted by the relics of 
the dead. 1 Accordingly, as early as the martyrdom of Poly- 
carp (probably A.D. 155), the body was refused to the Church. 
The high respect and veneration for the martyrs, which 
began quite early, passed gradually into a public cult, and 
gave rise to some abuses as early as the time of Diocletian. 

Each new fact regarding the state of Christianity in Asia 
Minor during the third century has its distinct value ; and 
we are gradually collecting the materials out of which a 
clearer idea of the beginnings of the Eastern Church can 
be formed. M. Gregoire accepts the early date assigned 
to Paul the Martyr of Derbe (whose tombstone was 
published by Miss Ramsay in " Studies in the History of 
the Eastern Provinces," p. 62), remarking that a common 
place sepulchral formula, such as is employed in the epitaph, 
is not the sort of inscription that would have been placed 
over a martyr in the time following the triumph of the 
Church. He here recognizes fully and confirms by his 
authority our principle that those simple forms of sepul 
chral inscription, which are either common to pagans and 
Christians, or only slightly modified in Christian usage from 
pagan phraseology, belong to the period before Constantine, 
and disappear with the generation which was living at the 
time when the peace of the Church was finally assured. 

The same scholar also accepts my interpretation of the 

1 On the magical powers attributed in pagan circles to the Christians in 
the early centuries, see above, ch. vin.-x. 



420 XXVII. The Pauline Churches 

epitaph of the five Phrygian " children, who on one single 
occasion gained the lot of life " : they are five martyrs, who 
suffered at Hieropolis, not far from Synnada, probably in 
the persecution of Decius A.D. 249-51, and were buried by 
their spiritual father, doubtless the Bishop of the Church. 1 

On the other hand M. Gr6goire is not convinced by the 
conjecture advanced by Mr. Anderson and myself in the 
"Studies in the Eastern Provinces," pp. 125, 201, that 
Bishop Akylas (Aquila), whose epitaph we have published, 
was a martyr. The language of the epitaph is obscure, and 
the text is not complete. For my own part I still believe 
that the view taken by Mr. Anderson is highly probable, 
and that further discovery is likely to confirm it. In any case 
it is a gain to have three assured and generally accepted 
graves and epitaphs of martyrs belonging to the third 
century. 

The Acta of the martyrs Trophimus and his companions 
are published in "Acta Sanctorum," of September, VI. pp. 
12 ff., and in Migne's " Patrol. Gr.," cxv. pp. 733 ff. See 
also Harnack, "Gesch. d. altchr. Litt," II. 2, p. 481 note ; 
Goerres, "Jahrb. f. protestant. Theol.," XVI. 1890, pp. 
616 f. (who denies the authenticity of the " Acta ") ; Allard, 
" Hist, des Persecutions," III. p. 279, 4 ; and Aub6, 
"L'lLglise et 1'Etat," p. 52 f. (who both maintain the 
authenticity). 2 My impression has always been that the 
"Acta," which are extremely interesting and well deserve 
a special publication, are of the fourth century, and pro- 

1 " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," n. p. 730 ff. 

2 See also Mercati, " Studi et itesti," 5, "Note di letterature biblica e 
cristiana antica," xv. pp. 206-26 ; " Un apologia antiellenica sotto forma di 
martirio ". On the formula "he shall have to reckon with God," see 
" Monumenta Ecclesiae liturgica," by Cabrol and Leclerc, i. f "relliq. 
liturg.," section i., "relliq. epigraph.," p. 12*, no. 2798. 



in the Third Century. 421 

bably quite trustworthy in the main outlines, though they 
give a later view of the situation. 

The discovery of this monument now gives assurance to 
the rather bold series of inferences which have been drawn 
from the study of the whole group of inscriptions marked 
by the concluding formula, that any violator of the grave 
" shall have to reckon with God ". These inferences are 
stated at length in the chapter already mentioned. 1 Given 
on the one hand the narrative of Paul's work founding the 
original Churches in the provinces Asia and Phrygia, and 
on the other hand their character in the third century, there 
stands out the story of an early and forgotten Christian 
society, which was destroyed with fire and sword, and 
practically extirpated, by Diocletian. Nothing of it has 
remained except those epitaphs. It produced no great 
writers, whose works might form its memorial. The very 
names of its bishops and leaders have perished. Men, 
women and children perished, as Eusebius says, " calling 
on the God Who is the power over all ". 2 The story of the 
great central atrocity in the Phrygian churches has been 
discredited by some with irrational scepticism. It rests on 
the authority of two practically contemporary historians, 
Eusebius and Lactantius. They differ only in the slight 
detail that Eusebius says an entire city with all its people 
was destroyed, while Lactantius states only that the whole 
population with their church were destroyed, implying that 
they assembled at the church and were burned there. To 
one who has by the patient toil of years tracked out those 
Christian communities by their formula of appealing to 
" the God," it comes as one of those startling and convincing 

1 "Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," ch. xn. 

2 Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.," vni. n. Compare Lactantius, " Inst. Div.," 



v. ii. 



422 XXVII. Pauline Churches in Third Century . 

details of real life and truth that the only thing recorded in 
history regarding that destroyed people is that they died 
" appealing to the God Who is over all ". Unconsciously 
Eusebius writes as the epitaph over the ashes of the des 
troyed people the thought and almost the very words by 
which we have recognized the epitaphs which they used to 
place on the graves of their families. 1 

These are the fruit of Paul's work. They perished and 
a different class of Phrygian or Lycaonian Christians suc 
ceeded them. The Church was now taken under the pro 
tection of the State, and in gratitude to the Constantinian 
dynasty condoned and accepted many of the false principles 
which were knit into the fabric and constitution of the 
Roman Empire. The Pauline Churches were practically 
destroyed in central Asia Minor, where they had been 
almost universally dominant during the third century 
among the population. 

Note (p. 412). The reading which Westcott and Hort 
print as secondary, resting on good early authority, must 
be preferred in Acts XIV. 21 : et? is omitted before 
Mzmo%eiaz/, making Iconium and Antioch a pair of cities in 
the same region, while Lystra is kept apart as a city of a 
different region. 

1 " Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," u. p. 507 f. 



INDEX 



t. New Testament Quota 
tions 

Matthew 
i. 18 f., 304, Preface, 
ii. i, 140 f. ; i, 2 and 9, 302 ; 5 f. t 

307. 

viii. 4, 310. 

xi. 5, 310. 

xii. 22, 129. 
Mark 

i. 22, 167; 34, 131, 310. 

iii. 12, 131, 310. 

ix. 17, 129. 
Luke 

222 f., Preface. 

i. 1-3, 199, 238 f. 

ii. 1-3, 85, 148, 156, 223 ff. ; 32 
and 34 f., 304. 

iii. i and 2, 245, 275, 298 ; 23, 

295. 
iv. 32, 166 f. ; 35 and 41, 131 ; 33 

and 41, 310; 36, 128. 
ix. 39, 129. 
xxii. 19, 312. 
John- 
Preface. 
iv. 6 f., 308 f. 
xxi. 25, 310. 
Acts 
79 ff. 

i.-xii., 199 f. ; xiii.-xxi., 85. 
i. 6, 147. 
ii. 3 f., 126. 
v. 12, 200; 36, 258; 37, 228, 

238. 

vii. 12, 254. 
viii. 7, 120 f., 200, 311 ; 9. n, 

140, 117 f. ; 13, 144, 164, 165 ; 

14 and 25, 211 ; 19, 124 ; 27 f., 

3131.; 40, 172. 
ix. 32, 211. 
x. 30, 218. 
xi. 21, 165. 



I. New Testament Quota 
tions (continued] 
Acts 
xii., 209 f. 
xiii. 6, 132 f., 150 f. ; 9, 46 ; 13 f., 

78, 85, 95, 164 f. 
v. 5, 39, 4 1 , 43, 53, 56, 59, 7 ; 
6 f., 46, 203; 9,95; 11,42; 12, 
48 ; 22, 45 ; 21-3, 412 ; 27, 50. 
xv. 3. 4. 12, 50 ; 39 f., 51. 
xvi. 2, 357; 13, 309; 15, 193; 

16-18, 136; 33, 193. 
xvii. 22. 32, 93, 94, Io8 5 34, 17, 

3?5- 

xviii. 7, 88 ; 8, 165 ; 27, 165. 
xix. 15, 311 ; 18, 165 ; 28, 118 ; 

35, 409. 
xxi. 15, 83 ; 16, 172 ; 20 and 25, 

165. 

xxii. 13, 137. 
xxiii. 2, 89 f. ; 10, 91 ; 28, 91 ; 

29, 95- 
xxiv. 5-6, 95. 
xxvii. 207, 312. 
xxviii. 14, 44. 
Romans 
i. 19 ff., ii. 13-15, viii. 18 ff., 178, 

349- 

viii., 148 ; 38, 176. 
xvi. 23, 88. 

1 Corinthians 
viii. 9, 128. 
xi. 10, 124. 
xii. 2, 142. 

xvi. 15, 193, 385 * 

2 Corinthians 
iv. 17, 137. 

xi. 25, 83 ; 28, 45. 
Galatians 
i. 6, 414. 

ii. 3, 142; 12, 211. 
iv. 12-14, 49 ; 13, 52 ; 15, 84- 
v. 21 ; cf. i. 9. 10, 414. 



(423) 



424 



Index. 



I. New Testament Quota 
tions (continued) 
Ephesians 

ii. 2, 176. 

iii. 20, 174. 
Philippians 

iv. 2, 309; 22, 411. 
Colossians 

iv., 212. 

1 Thessalonians 
v. 10, 186. 

Philemon 
212. 

2 Timothy 

iii. 10-12, 412 f. 
Revelation 

303 f- 

xvii. 12, 137. 

II. Personal Names 

Acta of Paul and Thekla, 133. 

Acta Sanctorum, 420. 

^Eschylus, 301. 

Akylas, Bishop, 420. 

Allard, 420. 

Anderson, Mr. J. G. C., 285, 

374 f., 420. 
Annakos, 58, 76. 
Aristides, 118. 
Arkwright, 76. 
Artemidorus, 78. 
Aube, 420. 
Bartlet, Prof., 88, 94. 
Blass, Prof., 87, 103, 167, 303. 
Blant, E. Le, 108. 
Brandis, Dr., 62, 399, 405. 
Bruce, A. B., 300, Preface. 
Buresch, 118. 
Cabrol and Leclerc, 420. 
Cagnat, 157, 264. 
Calder, Prof., 74, 283, 285, 374 f. 
Catullus, 340. 
Chamonard, 362. 
Charles, Canon, 303. 
Chase, Bp., 51. 
Cheesman, Mr., 153, 287, 300. 
Cicero, 40, 53-4, 60, 63, 103, 396, 

402 f. 

Clementine-Pseudo, 165. 
Clement of Alexandria, 241, 244. 
Cumont, 108, 175. 
Darenberg and Saglio, 107-8, 

3.14- 
Deissmann, 115, 179, 220, 320, 

372, 3 8 4- 



II. Personal Names (con 
tinued) 
Dessau, Prof., 151, 157, 163, 277, 

285, 287, 314. 
Diels, 408. 

Dio Cassius, 396, 404. 
Dio Chrys., 406. 
Domaszewski, 188, 296-7, 317 f. 
Duchesne, Monsignor, 37, 313, 

416. 

Dumont and Homolle, 264. 
Eugenius, Bishop Laod., 417. 
Eusebius, 421 f. 
Firmilian, 56, 60. 
Fustel de Coulanges, 271. 
Gardthausen, 63, 232, 240, 282, 

296. 

Goerres, 420. 
Gollancz, Prof., 139. 
Gre"goire, Prof. H., 37, 416 f. 
Grenfell and Hunt, 256. 
Groag, Prof. E., 296. 
Hadrian (Letter of), 115. 
Hardy, Prof. Ross, 190. 
Harnack, Dr., 77, 121, 200, 213, 

420. 

Hasluck, Mrs., 373 f. 
Hastings' Diet., 311. 
Hausrath, 162. 
Henzen, 296-7. 
Herzog, 366. 
Herodotus, 75. 
Hierax, 56, 60. 
Hill, G. F., 367. 
Holm, 394. 
Homer, 75, 84. 

Horace, 137, 145, 247, 320 ff., 382. 
Hubert, 107, 108, 177. 
Hunt, Dr., 256. 
Hunter, Mr., 316. 
Isaiah, 301. 

foannes of Damascus, 59. 
osephus, 231, 258, 278. 
[ustin Martyr, 243. 
[uvenal, 161, 169. 
Kaestner, 407. 
Keil, Dr., 77. 
Keil and Premerstein, 77, 117, 

364- 

Kennedy, Prof. A. R. S., 369. 
Kennedy, Prof. H. A. A., 107, 

108, 177. 

Kiessling, Prof., 327 f. 
Knowling, Prof., 88. 



Index. 



425 



II. Personal Names (con 
tinued) 

Kretschmer, 76 f. 

Kubitschek, 158. 

Lactantius, 421. 

Lambertz, 383. 

Legrand and Chamonard, 362. 

Liebenam, 394. 

Lightfoot, 162 f. 

Livy, 402. 

Loisy, 174. 

Lucian, 106, in, 113, 117. 

Lucretius, 108. 

Macdonell, 380. 

Mackinlay, 147, 302. 

Marquardt, 318, 394 f. 

Martial, 161. 

Mayor, Prof., 335 f. 

Menander, 101. 

Mendel, 415. 

Mercati, 420. 

Meyer- Wendt, 162, 167. 

Meyer, P. M., 297. 

Migne, 420. 

Milford, Mr., 139. 

Milligan, Dr., 264. 

Mitteis, 263, 394 f. 

Moffatt, Prof., 142, 297. 

Moltke, 65. 

Mommsen, 86, 98, 160, 229 f., 

253, 257, 271, 276 f., 286, 295, 

318, 394 f., Preface. 
Nannakos, see Annakos. 
Nicetas Choniata, 82. 
Nipperdey-Andresen, 279. 
Ovid, 48. 

Pape-Benseler, 104, 365. 
Paul of Derbe, 419. 
Pauly-Wissowa, 399, 405, 407. 
Pausanias, 392. 
Pliny, Nat. Hist., 57, 76, 163, 

240 f., 396. 

Pliny, Epist., 169, 394, 395, 406. 
Plummer, Dr., 228. 
Plutarch, 406. 
Pocock, 297. 
Premerstein, Ritter von, 77, 117, 

36 4 . 

Ptolemy, 57. 
Puller, Fr., 120 f. 
Rackham, Rev. R. B., 167 f. 
Radet, 183, 188. 
Ramsay, Lady, 285, 313, Pref. 
Ramsay, Miss, 419. 



27* 



II. Personal Names (con 
tinued] 

Reitzenstein, 109. 
Rohden and Dessau, 277. 
Rostowzew, 195, 261, 264, 313, 

399- 

Ruggiero, 297. 
Salmon, Dr., 213. 
Schofield, Dr., 204. 
Schmiedel, Prof., 228, 253, 277. 
Schiirer, 300. 

Schultze, 149, 372 ; W., 383. 
Seneca, 104. 
Schaper, 333. 
Souter, Prof., 370. 
Statius, 97, 101 f., 161. 
Steinmann, 388 ff. 
Stephanus, Byz., 58 f. 
Sterrett, Prof., 193, 290. 
Strabo, 55, 57 f., 62, 77, 82, 134, 

233, 279, 284, 289 f., 292. 
Strauss, 253. 
Suetonius, 146, 240, 295, 317, 

396. 

Sundwall, 49. 
Tacitus, 146, 161, 162, 168, 240 f., 

247, 278 f., 287, 317, 326, 396, 

402 f. 

Tertullian, 191, 231, 243 f., 293 f. 
Thekla, 45, 133. 
Thucydides, 365. 
Trophimus Mart., 416 f. 
Vaglieri, 297. 
Valerius Maximus, 105. 
Vinogradoff, 197, 267. 
Virgil, 145, 247, 320 ff. 
Vopiscus, 115. 

Westcott-Hort, 91, 422, Pref. 
Wesseling, 48. 
Wetstein, 48, 105. 
Wiegand, Th., 77, 360. 
Wilcken, 78, 225, 234 f., 256 f., 

272 f. 

Xenophon, 40, 41, 56, 59, 77. 
Zulueta, 267 f. 

I. Geographical Names 

Achaia, 385 ff. 

Africa, 294. 

Akmonia, 342 f. 

Alexandria, 259. 

Amisos, 395 f., 406 f. 

Amphissa, 405. 

Anatolia, 39, 41. 187, 195 f. 



II 



426 



Index. 



ill. Geographical Names 
(continued] 

Antioch Pisid., 35, 45, 50, 62, 97, 
100, 151 f., 158, 193, 263, 282 f., 
353 f., 400 f., 412, 422. 

Antioch Syr., 220, 263. 

Apameia, 44, 320, 364 f. 

Apollonia, 44, 62, 193. 

Assos, 84. 

Athens, 67, 84, 100 f., 385 f. 

Attaleia, 288. 

Babylonia, 354. 

Bethlehem, 225 f., 250, 265, 271 f., 

305 f. 

Bithynia, 51, 185, 395, 406. 
Blaundos, 360 f. 
Britain, 263. 
Broussa, 415. 
Buda-pesth, 269. 
Caesarea Capp., 35 ; Caesarea 

Strat., 206. 

Cappadocia, 48, 86, 133, 192, 404. 
Caralis, 284, 289. 
Chalcis, 299. 

Cilicia, 134, 279, 281, 397. 
Claudiconium, 66. 
Claudioderbe, 66. 
Colossae, 35. 
Conium, 57. 
Corinth, 98, 385 f. 
Crete, 279. 
Cyrene, 229. 

Cyprus, 50, 100, 113, 161 f. 
Cyzicus, 402. 
Delphi, 405. 

Derbe, 46, 263, 412 f., 422. 
Dorylaion, 35, 183, 187 f. 
Egypt, 255 f., 346 ; ch. xix., xx. 
Elatea, 405. 

Eleutherolacones (the), 405. 
Ephesus, 54, 67, 97, 98, 100, 113, 

135, 182, 408 f. 
Galatia, 44, 50-1, 57, 60 f., 86, 152, 

157, 182, 192, 234, 279, 281 f., 

353 f, 387, 390, 4 12 f - 
Gaul, 263. 
Greece, 262. 
Hermus valley, 365. 
Hierapolis, 420. 
Iconium, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 

48, 52 f., 66, 97, 100, 263, 412. 
Isauria, 49, 62 f. 
Jerusalem, 93, 95, 221. 
Keramon Agora, 74. 



III. Geographical Names 

(continued) 

Konia, 68 f. 

Kos, 397. 

Kuyujak, 187, 

Laodicea, 35, 54, 63, 409. 

Latium, 44. 

Lugdunum, 401. 

Lycia, 44, 390, 404. 

Lycaonia, 39, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 

52 f., 289, 412. 
Lydia, 44. 
Lycus, 409. 
Lystra, 39, 42, 45, 46-9, 63, 97, 

203, 280, 289, 412, 422, 
Macedonia, 187, 402, 404, 408. 
Massalia, 402. 
Mesembria, 264. 
Mopsouestia, 396. 
Mothone, 405. 
Mygdonia, 61, 300. 
Nakoleia, 186. 
Nazareth, 250, 264. 
Naples, 101. 
Nicopolis, 405. 
Olbasa, 288. 
Orkaorkoi, 58. 
Ozolian Locrians (the), 405. 
Pale, 405. 

Palestine, '95, 221, 250, 262 f. 
Pallantion, 405. 
Pamphylia, 50, 404. 
Paphlagonia, 294. 
Paphos, 113, 135, 386. 
Parlais, 288. 
Patrae, 402, 405. 
Perga, 288. 
Pessinus, 51. 
Pharsalus, 405. 
Philippi, 97, 98, 100, 113, 187, 

309, 353, 386. 
Philomelium, 54. 
Phrygia, 40, 43, 48, 52 f., 163, 

185, 187, 188, 198, 247, 263, 

292, 300, 313, 354 f., 412, 415 

(Pacatiana). 
Pitnissos, 58. 
Pisidia, 19, 57, 61 f., 292. 
Plataea, 405. 
Pontus, 51. 

Rome, 66, 296, 320 ff., 357. 
Sagalassos, 397. 
Saghir, 193. 
Sala, 366. 






Index. 



427 



III. Geographical Names 
(continued) 
Samaria, 113, 117 f., 308. 
Sardis, 74, 77. 
Smyrna, 397, 400 f., 407. 
Sparta, 405. 
Surrentum, 347. 
Sychar, 308. 
Synnada, 415. 
Syria, 134, 225 f., 233, 252, 275 f., 

353 , 48. 
Tanagra, 405. 
Tarsus, 54, 134, 263, 357, 397, 

408. 
Tatta, 58. 



III. Geographical Names 
(continued] 
Taurus, 281, 290. 
Thespiai, 405. 
Thessalonica, 97, 98, 402. 
Thessaly, 405. 
Thrace, 262, 264. 
Thyatira, 360. 
Troas, 84. 
Trogitis, 284, 289. 
Turkey, 270. 
Tyana, 48. 
Tyriaion, 48. 
Ushak, 358 f. 



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