The avoidance of the name Lydia in the NT to designate the country, though the action often lies in its cities, is due to the fact that the early Church accepted from the first the Roman political divisions (i.e. the provinces), and classified accord- ingly. St. Paul, St. John, and St. Peter always speak of the Roman provinces Achaia, Macedonia, exten? Asia, ete.t So does St. Luke, except that he sometimes uses the Greek instead of the Roman name for each province in the cases where there was a difference, as Hellas for Achaia, Ac 20’. Hence Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, ete., are summed up, not as ‘cities of Lydia,’ but as ‘ cities of Asia.’
It has, however, been maintained recently b Blass (Acta Apostolor. p. 176) and Zahn (Eunlev- tung in d. NT, i. p. 132) that Luke uses the name Asia to indicate only the western part of the province. According to Zahn, Luke’s Asia is restricted to Lydia, excluding Caria,t Phrygia, and Mysia (which were all included in the Roman srovince Asia). Blass maintains that Luke’s Asia included Mysia, Lydia, and Caria, and excluded only Phrygia: the paces had that extent from 133 to 84 B.c., and Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emp. p. 150, wrongly admitted that sense in Ac 2° But there \s no example of the name Asia being used in
* Lydia in Ezk 805 AV is corrected to Lud in RV. See Lup.
Ὁ Scholars who hold the North-Galatian theory maintain that in the single case of Galatia St. Paul made an exception to his usual practice, and used that name to indicate, not the Roman province, but the country inhabited by the Asiatic Gauls.
t He does not state his yiew about Caria explicitly ; some of his words would place the Carian const-lands in Asia, and exclude upper Caria; others would exclude all Caria.
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either of these senses at this time.* Towards A.D. 295 the province Asia was restricted to the count Lydia, and thereafter Asia bore the meaning whic Zahn attributes to it in Luke’s writings. But in earlier writers Asia has only two senses: (1) the entire continent, (2) the Roman province distin- guished by Ptolemy as ἡ ᾿Ασία ἰδίως λεγομένη. Some Greek antiquaries, indeed, maintained that Lydia had once, in very early times, been called Asia; but this was a mere theory ; not a single example cau be quoted in its favour; and, according to Strabo (p. 627), these antiquaries qualified their theory with a ‘perhaps’ (τάχα γὰρ ἡ Myovia’Acla ἐλέγετο). There appears in Aristides about A.D. 150 a single example (to which no parallel is known) of a third sense, in which, by popular conversational usage, the name Asia is restricted to the greatest and most civilized part of the province, ἔ.6. Asia par excellence ; but even in this narrow sense it includes a considerable part of Phrygia, the Meander valley from its source, with the rich and important cities, Apameia, Eumeneia, Laodicea, Hierapolis (λέγω δὲ (1) οὐχὶ τὴν μέχρι Μαιάνδρου πηγῶν [Asia par excellence), t (2) οὐδ᾽ ὅσην ὁ τῶν ἡγεμόνων ὑμῶν κλῆρος ὁρίζεται [province], (3) ἀλλ’ ἣν ἐξ ἀρχῆς οἱ Ἑλληνες προσεῖπον ᾿Ασίαν [continent], xxii. p. 475 C, Dind. vol. i. p. 441), so that it justifies neither Zahn nor Blass. Moreover, it would be unjustifiable to suppose that Luke uses the term in a sense which is not found before Aristides, and is in him indi- cated as a mere conversational expression. Again, in the letter of the Church of Lugudunum, addressed τοῖς ἐπ’ ᾿Ασίας καὶ Φρυγίας ἀδελφοῖς (imitated by Tertullian, adv. τας. 1, ecclesiis Asie εὐ Phrygie), we are not to understand a formal distinction between Asia and Phrygia, as two mutually exclusive divisions. Phrygia was divided between the provinces Asia and Galatia; and Galatic Fhrygis, with the Churches of Iconium, Antioch, ape lonia, ete., was closely connected with Asian Phrygia, and is classed along with it as a recipient of the Lugudunensian letter. The name ᾿Ασία oceurs very often in inscriptions and coins, both within and beyond the province: usually it means the province, sometimes it has a wider sense (e.g. CIG 5127, 5913, a coin of Nicomedia boasting itself πρώτη ᾿Ασίας), never a narrower sense. It is used in many inscriptions of Phrygia to include that country, in such cities as Apameia, Laodicea, Eumeneia, etc. (Cit. and Bish. of Phr., No. 8, 292; CIG 3957, 39020, etc.). The ordinary usage of the word ’Acla in the province is beyond doubt.
The feminine of the adj. Lydian (Λυδία) probably occurs in Ac 16, The Thyatiran hostess of the apostle in Philippi was familiarly known ip the town by the ethnic that showed her origin To every one who considers how common the custom was of using a familiar name (a nickname even) in place of the formal name, this opinion will seem practically certain. Even in honorary in- scriptions, and on the bases of statues, the familiar name is often added to the formal name, and is sometimes even expressed in a line by itself and in larger letters,t to bring home to the minds of citizens their peculiar and intimate relations to the person honoured. But apparently Paul, who is more formal and distantly courteous than Luke
. * Blass quotes Pliny (Hist. Nat, v. xxviii, 102) as an example
of the sense which he advocates for Asia, but the passage does not justify him, see Studia Bidblica, iv. p. 451. Zahn quotes it as supporting himself, equally unjustiflably.