Christianity did not spread uniformly over Phrygia. The three local groups of inscriptions are separated by a large district, where the new religion seems not to have grown so strong until the time of Constantine.* The eh oes martyrs who are known by name almost all belong to the period before A.D. 184 (see Neumann’s list in der rom. Staat und die allgemeine Kirche, p. 283). When Christianity was so strong, the Roman theoretical principle, that Christians should be treated as outlaws, was difficult to carry out; for a formal accusation by an overt prosecutor was ordinarily required, and it would be difficult to find private persons ready to incur the hatred of a united and energetic body like the Christians. But in Diocletian’s persecution the government hunted down the Christians, and employed soldiers and officials for that special purpose; and in such a time the cities where Christians were most numerous would suffer most. Even in Diocletian’s time individual Phrygian martyrs were little re- membered, but only the general facts that whole communities and one entire city were destroyed.
Considering at how early a date Christianity was diffused over large parts of Phrygia, it may seem strange that the ecclesiastical system was so backward there during the 4th cent., except in Galatie Phrygia, where the list of bishoprics can be traced almost complete during that cen- tury.t The reason lies in two noteworthy facts, In the first place, Phrygia was the country where above all others, heresy was strongest; but the ecclesiastical lists are of the Orthodox Church. Thus, for example, Kotiaion was a great seat of Christianity in the 38rd cent., and so was the country of the Praipenisseis. Yet neither can be traced in the lists earlier than the 5th cent. The reason is, undoubtedly, that the Orthodox Church had little hold there. We know of either bishops or presbyters at Otrous and Hierapolis in the 2nd cent.; but in the ecclesiastical lists those two cities ap ear only in the 5th cent. In the second place, Phrygia was regarded by the orthodox writers as rude and caedupatenee because the organization and equipment of the Orthodox Church were in a backward state there. Chris- tianity was so strong in certain parts of Phrygia that the persecution of Diocletian raged there on a vast scale, and almost annihilated people and civilization and organization.
V. THE JEWS IN PurRyGiIA.—The position and history of the Jews in Phrygia is another large sub- ject, which throws much light on the narrative of Acts and on the rapid spread of Christianity in the country. The Jews were much favoured by the Seleucid kings, as trustworthy colonists in the many cities which they founded to maintain their empire in Asia Minor, especially along the routes leading from their capital at Syrian Antioch through Cilicia and Lycaonia into Southern Phrygia§ and Lydia. eats Ἐπ evidence, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ii. p. 715;
if Galatic Phrygia is part of Pisidia in the lists. Those Pisidian bishoprics which can first be traced in the 5th cent, or later were in the mountainous and backward districts.
1 See, for example, Acta S. Hypatii, 17 June, iv. 249.
§ Northern Phrygia and Galatia, which were little or not at all under Seleucid power, shared very little in these settle
PHRYGIA
PHYLACTERIES, FRONTLETS 869
Seleucus Nikator (B.C. 301-280) granted them the highest class of rights, equal to those of Mace- donian and Greek settlers, in all his colonies ; and his successors maintained the privileges of the Jews. Various privileges were conceded to their religious scruples: the entire body of regulations nteeing their rights and privileges seems to ve remained permanently in force in the cities, and is appealed to as ‘the law of the Jews’ in an inscription of Apamea as late as the 3rd cent. after Christ.* By one single act Antiochus the Great ordered 2000 Jewish families to be brought from Babylonia and settled in the strong places of Lydia and Phrygia about B.c. 200. When such a course of action lasted for fully a century, it is plain what large numbers of Jews must have been settled in Phrygia, Lycaonia, etc.
These considerations explain how Flaccus, the Roman governor of Asia in B.C. 62, could seize 100 pounds weight of gold at Apamea, and 20 at Laodicea, being contributions from the Jews of Phrygia on the point of being sent up to Jeru- salem. These large sums, of course, represented the contributions of woe districts, and not simply of the two cities. They are calculated by M. Th. Reinach as together equivalent to 100,000 drachme, being the contributions of 50,000 people paying two drachme annually.t
According to Dr. Neubauer (Géographie du Talmud, p. 315), these Jews had to a considerable extent lost connexion with their country and for-
otten their language; the baths and wines of
iryeia had separated the Ten Tribes from their brethren, as the Talmud expresses it; they were readily converted to Christianity ; and the Talmud alludes to the numerous converts. These opinions have been strongly confirmed by epigraphic dis- covery. The Phrygian Jews were strongly atlected by their surroundings, and were ready to comply, at least outwardly, with many pagan customs, and especially with the forms of the imperial religion, regarded as the test of loyalty to the Roman empire. They Eo beny were oiten in- clined to magic and forbidden arts (see THYATIRA and Ac 19,8). Their frequent tendency to amal- gamate Jewish and pagan ideas in an eclectic philosophical system is illustrated at Colossi (see the Epistle). A Jewess married to a Greek and having an uncircumcised son is mentioned at Lystra (Ac 1653). At the same time there can be no doubt that the Phrygian Jews as a body preserved much of the old Jewish character, and presented in ely a much higher and purer moral tone than the pagans; and it was this character that gave them great influence and attracted numerous proselytes. On the whole their existence was not hostile, but favourable, to Christianity. Luke emphasizes every instance of their aaa but he shows clearly that there was another side to the question: the Jews of Pisidian Antioch were opposed to Paul’s placing the Gentiles on an equ ity with themselves (Ac 13“), but not so much to his doctrines: a great multitude of Jews at Iconium believed. The Jewish and the Christian inscriptions melt into one another in Phrygia, so that it is often difli- cult to draw a line of distinction. The Phrygian Christians were strongly inclined to Judaism. Every heresy in Phrygia tended to become Juda- istic. Novatianism, which seems to have been ments. The Jews of North Galatia were probably all late immigrants from Phrygia, etc. Ρ