III. Ecclesiastical Statistics. — The followim: tabular survey of the statistics of the Roman Catholic, Prot- estant, and total Christian population is taken from Schem's Ecclesiastical Year-book for 1859.
ASIA
4G9
ASIA
Asiatic Russia
China
East India
Farther India
Turkey
Archipelago . .
Japan
Tartary
Persia
Afghanistan . . Beloochistan. . Arabia
Total . .
7,000,000 400,000,000 171,000,000 15,000,000
15,000,000 S0,000,000 35,000,000
S, 000, 000 13,000,000 4,000,000 2,000,000 5,000,000
755,000,000
:.M 1(1,(11 10
360,000
1,200,000
70,000 3,000
The Greek Church is the largest Christian body in Asiatic Russia and Asiatic Turkey, and is at present spreading, together with Russian influence, in Central Asia and China. Armenians are numerous in Russia, Turkey, and Persia, and scattered in India. Nestori- ans and Jacobites are mostly found in Turkey and India, the former also in Persia. By many it is believed that there are still numerous descendants of Christians in various parts of Asia as yet unknown to the rest of the Christian world. In 1855 a report spread that, at a dis- tance of eighteen days' journey from Cabul, there exist- ed 12,000 Christian villages, and in 1859 it was assert- ed that 30,000 native Christians had been discovered in the island of Celebes. Buddhism, Brahminism, and the other religious systems of India, China, and Ja- pan, count together a population of about GOO millions. Mohammedanism prevails in Asiatic Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Tartary, and is, in general, professed by a population of about 50 millions. The Jews in Asiatic Turkey are estimated at about 350,000 ; small numbers live scattered in near- ly every country. The rest belong to a great variety of pagan systems.
2. Asia Minor was the name anciently given to the region nearly inclosed by the Euxine, jEgsean, and Mediterranean Seas, and now forming a part of Tur- key. Respecting the Biblical notices of this district we have to remark : (a) Antiochus the Great is called king of Asia in 1 Mace, viii, 6 ; a title that he assumed as master (not only of Syria, but also) of the greater part of Asia Minor (which had passed over to the Mace- donian princes as a Persian province), hut was com-
pelled (B.C. 189) to relinquish all the Asiatic districts west of the Taurus to the Romans (Liv. xxxviii, 38 ; 1 Mace, viii, 8), who committed Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia to Eumenes (II), king of Pergamus (Liv. xxxvii, 55 ; xxxviii, 39). Hence (i) the kingdom of Pergamus was called the Asiatic empire, although the Syrian Seleucidas, who only occupied Cilicia, likewise (perhaps only out of empty pretence) assumed this title (1 Mace, xii, 39; xiii, 32; 2 Mace, iii, 3), and. so the empires of Egypt and Asia are found in contrast (1 Mace, xiii, 13)." (e) By the will of Attalus (III) Philo- metor (q. v.), the kingdom of Pergamus passed over (B.C. 133) as a province into the hands of the Romans, in whose diplomatic phraseology Asia was now termed simply "Asia cis TaUrum" (comp. Cicero, Flare. 27; Nep. Attic. 54; Plin. 40), i. e. including the districts Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria (which last the Rhodians obtained after the conquest of Antiochus the Great). It was governed by a prater until the Em- peror Augustus made it a proconsular province. In this extent it is styled Asia Proper (// iSLwQ icaXovph'ii 'Affia, Ptolem. v, 2; comp. Strabo, xii, 577). To this connection appear to belong the following passages of the N. T. : Acts vi, 9 (where Asia and Cilicia are names of Roman provinces in Asia Minor) ; xx, 16 ; 1 Pet. i, 1 (see Steiger, in loc.) ; Rev. i, 4 ; comp. ii and iii, where letters to the Christian communities in the seven cities of (proconsular) Asia designate those in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (q. v. severally) (see Liieke, Off'enbar. J oil. p. 201; comp. T. Smith, Septem Asiw ecclesiar. notitia, Lond. 1671, Utr. 1694; Arundell, Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia, Lond. 1828). On the other hand, in Acts ii, 9 (comp. xvi, 6 ; see Wiggers, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, i, 169), it appears to denote Phrygia, or, as the commentators will have it, only Ionia (see Kuinol, in loc.) ; but it is not certain that in Roman times Ionia was called Asia by pre-eminence (see Pliny, v, 28 ; comp. Solin. 43). The extent in 2 Cor. i, 8, is un- certain, and, moreover, the boundaries of Asia Minor varied at different periods (see Mannert, VI, ii, 15 sq. ; Wetstein, ii, 464). Thus it may be regarded as pretty well settled: (1.) That "Asia" denotes the whole of Asia Minor, in the texts Acts xix, 26, 27; xxi, 27;
T^isa„r^
TH/KAC il^lfe U -P- X' St535
feAii
f-0. \cojiwpdfu* Gansrn
^■Xk ■" Jja\lastana,
p^Sul^^
A7nasM!o s\^ \ -g ; - 1 \lastan* ./ ^^"'^Pp l^> N^ '
*s^L&tfai — k 7*r 1™o— ; K ^ i^gfe^rril
I) ", .hMftt/rnc
ftyssa #0'
% "^PerpaTnos"^ Wt
Cs^~~°5 ' '#'..|,t. ■•»■„' -«?
mT ' 'lliyltira
^ J* «*saL,
l°\ . %': . °F-hiloi,fd.unpT1r„,ur- -''?'
-.JF-cr^polJs AiiIkh]) u-l clinAf.rn""_ ^
•coiosl^ i sii) i a f rcoiuuu.^ Acj;y :y ~\ ;',;;*:,;.>- | ^-^pS-bej /-> PAM p ii J , lLwr,^m,ll?i^«lXlS c
-afl
Carnallnij)- " "' - 0,-L-r WARf'ATIIL LV_SKA ,
Lit.
Map of Asia Minor.
ASIA