TARSUS
TATTLKRS
549
ject kings. Xenophon (c. 400 B.C.) found it a iriXiv fi(ya\T]i' Kal eMai/iova, where Syennesis, kinj; of Ciiitia, luid his residence (Annh. i. ii. 2:{). The victories of Alexander the Great clianged the face of tlie East, and T.arsus was one of the many cities that were Hellenized by tlie .Seleucids. Antiochus Epi[)liaiies IV. visited Cilicia about 170 B.C. for tlie purpose of allaying discontent in Tarsus and the neighbouring town of Mallus (•> Mac i'""-), and Hanisay thinks it probable that this king recon- .stituted Tarsus as an autonomous Greek city, and that, according to the practice of the Seleucids, he planted a colony of Jews there, giving them equal rights of citizenship (Ifforttxla.) with the Greeks {The Cities of St. Paul, London, 1907, pp. 165, 180). The citizens of Greek towns were divided into ' tribes' (0i>XaO, each observing its own special religious rites ; and, as the individu.al could not enjoy civic privileges e.xcept in his relation to the tribe, tliere must have been a cf>v\-/i of Jews in Tarsus, each member of which could boast of being ' a Tar- sian of Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city ' (Ac 21^"). The far-reaching change which this Antiochus, who was at first no enemy of the Jews, made in Tarsus was commemorated by the new name given to the city — 'Antioch on the Cydnus' — which, however, was soon dropped, as there were already so many Antiochs, and as Tarsus was still essentially an Oriental city. When Pompey reconstituted the province of Cilicia (in 64 B.C.), Tarsus became the headquarters of the Roman governor, but it lost this honour when Augustus formed the great joint- province of Syria-Cilicia-Phoenice (probably in 27 B.C.). Tarsus took Coesar's side in the Civil War, and in memory of a visit which the dictator paid it in his march from Egypt to Pontus it either received or assumed the name of Juliopolis. The republican Cassius plundered it on that account, but Mark Antony made it a civitas libera et im- munis, and Augustus confirmed its privileges. Under a strong and j ust Roman government. Tarsus was left to the peaceful development of its great resources, and reached the zenith of its prosperity, while its Hellenization now went on apace. In- spired with an enthusiasm for learning and the arts, it established a university, which was not in- deed so splendidly equipped as the older founda- tions of Athens and Alexandria, but, according to Strabo (XIV. v. 12), even surpassed them in zeal for knowledge. At the same time Tarsus developed a hir;her civic consciousness, and under the benign rule of Augustus' old preceptor, the Stoic Atheno- dorus, who received divine honours after his death, and of Nestor, the teacher of Marcellusand perhaps of Tiberius, it for a time realized the Platonic ideal of government by philosophers. T. Mommsen has called Asia Minor ' the promised land of municipal vanity' (The Provinces of the Roman Empire, Eng. tr.,2 vols., London, 1909, i. 328, n. 1), and it is curious to see how Tarsus, like so many other cities, arrogated such high-sounding titles as Metropolis, Neokoros, Free, Kirst, Fairest, Best, liut this was only the defect of her qualities, and all that was highest and worthiest in her life was associated with the intense local patriotism of her citizens.
We have not the means of accurately measuring the etiect of such an intellectual environment on ' Saul of Tarsus ' during his formative years. It cannot be proved that he received a liberal educa- tion in his native city before he went to study in Jerusalem. It is certain, however, that Tarsus was one of the great seats of Stoic philosophy, and ' it is not mere conjecture, that St. Paul had some ac- quaint.ance with the teachers or the writings of this school ' (J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians*, London, 1878, p. 304). It is equally evident that he ob- tained in Tarsus an insight into civic and Imperial
politics, which exercised a profound influence upon ids thought as a Christian. He learned to give full value to the words iroXirTjs (Ac 2P"), o-uMiroXirij! (Eph 2"'), TToXiT-efa (.-Vc 22'^», Ejih 2'-), iroXiTtu^a (I'll 3™). He not only enjoyed, like all his com- patriots in Tarsus (the avyyiveU of Ro 16'- "■ -'), the freedom of his native city, but he had the far higher privilege, of which only few of them could boast, of oeing a Roman born (.\c 22-'). While his Tarsian citizenship availed biiu little outside the city, his PaiMaiis fi'Mi — Ciins Hum'iniis sum — was a talisman which ailorded him protection almost everywhere. And his double citizenship not only was in itself a privilege, but became a fruitful ideal. The thought of a citizen-life worthy of a Tarsian and of a Roman early penetrated his mind, and reappeared by and by in the sublim.-ited form of a civic con- duet worthy of the gosjjel of Christ (iroXiTfiJco-fle, Ph 1^), a conscientious citizen-life led always be- fore God (ireTroXireii/iat TifJ Sci^, Ac 23').
After his conversion St. Paul spent several years in Tarsus and other parts of Cilicia (Gal 1-'), labour- ing and learning there in unrecorded ways, and it was in his native city that he was found by Barna- bas (Ac 11^). At the beginning of his .second mis- sionary tour he was again in Cilicia, conlirming the churches which he had probably founded (.Vc 15""), and he could not avoid Tarsus on his way through the Cilician Gates to Derbe and Lystra (Ac 16'). His third tour also began with a journey from Syrian Antioch to the region of Phrygia and Gala- tia (Ac 18^), no doubt via Tarsus, which he then probably saw for the last time.