Asia

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Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


ASIA.—In the NT this word invariably means the Roman province Asia, which embraced roughly the western third of the peninsula which we call Asia Minor. It was bounded on the N.E. by the province of Bithynia, on the E. by the province of Galatia, on the S. by the province of Lycia, and had been ceded to the Romans by the will of the Pergamenian king Attalus III. in b.c. 133. The following ethnic districts were in this province—Mysia, Lydia, Western Phrygia, and Caria. The province was the richest, and, with the one exception of Africa, its equal, the most important in the Roman Empire. It was governed by a proconsul of the higher grade, with three legati under him. Ephesus, Pergamum, and Smyrna were its principal cities. St. Paul’s preaching in Ephesus was the most powerful cause of the spread of the gospel in this province, and the Epistle ‘to the Ephesians’ is probably a circular letter to all the churches in it. Seven are enumerated in Rev_1:1-20; Rev_2:1-29; Rev_3:1-22, which is post-Pauline.
A. Souter.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

In the New Testament not the continent, nor Asia Minor, but the W. of Asia Minor, with Ephesus as its capital, including Mysia, Lydia, Caria. Attalus, king of Pergamus, left it to the Romans 138 B.C. It was placed by Augustus among the senatorial provinces, as distinguished from the imperial provinces. Hence it was governed by a "proconsul," as Act_19:38 (anthupatos), with the minute propriety which marks truth, incidentally intimates. It had its "assize days" (agoraioi, margin "the court days are kept.") Here were the seven churches addressed in the Revelation. In the Old Testament "Asia" does not occur.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

A'sia. (orient). The passages in the New Testament where this word occurs are the following; Act_2:9; Act_6:9; Act_16:6; Act_19:10; Act_19:22; Act_19:26-27; Act_20:4; Act_20:16; Act_20:18; Act_21:27; Act_27:2; Rom_16:5; 1Co_16:19; 2Co_1:8; 2Ti_1:15; 1Pe_1:1; Rev_1:4; Rev_1:11.
In all these, it may be confidently stated that the word is used for a Roman province which embraced the western part of the peninsula of Asia Minor and of which Ephesus was the capital.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

one of the four grand divisions of the earth. It is also used in a more restricted sense for Asia Minor, or Anatolia. In the New Testament it always signifies the Roman Proconsular Asia, in which the seven Apocalyptic churches were situated.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

Over the centuries leading up to the New Testament era, the numerous independent states of Asia Minor had been brought under the control of firstly the Greeks, then the Romans. In the New Testament period a number of them were joined together to form what became known as the province of Asia. The local people, however, continued to use the names of the former states when referring to certain regions.
In the north-west of the newly formed province was the former region of Mysia, which included the towns of Troas, Assos, Adramyttium and Pergamum. In the south-east was part of the former region of Phrygia, the other part of which was in the neighbouring province of Galatia. The towns of Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis fell within the part of Phrygia that was in the province of Asia.
Phrygia was the region where Paul first entered the province of Asia (during his second missionary journey), but God did not allow him to preach there. Paul therefore headed north towards the province of Bithynia, but he was forbidden to preach there also. He then headed west across Mysia to Troas, from where he sailed for Europe (Act_16:6-11).

When returning to Syria from Europe at the end of the journey, Paul called at Ephesus, chief city of the province of Asia, where he left Aquila and Priscilla. This marked the beginning of Christian work in the province. Only a few months later, Paul returned to Ephesus, and over the next three years carried on an extensive work of evangelism in and around the city (Act_18:18-21; Act_19:1-20; Act_20:31; see EPHESUS).
It was probably during this time that churches were founded in neighbouring districts at Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis, possibly by disciples whom Paul had taught in Ephesus (Act_19:8-10; Col_1:2; Col_1:7; Col_2:1; Col_4:13). Churches were probably established also at Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia and Thyatira, which were towns not far to the north of Ephesus (Rev_2:8; Rev_2:12; Rev_2:18; Rev_3:1; Rev_3:7).
The Jews of Asia were bitterly opposed to Paul and were a source of constant persecution (Act_21:27; Act_24:18; 2Co_1:8-9; 2Ti_1:15). The condition of the churches in Asia at the end of the first century is reflected in the letters that John wrote to seven churches there (Revelation 2; Revelation 3; see entries under the respective towns).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

ā?shi-a (Ἀσία, Ası́a): A Roman province embracing the greater part of western Asia Minor, including the older countries of Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and a part of Phrygia, also several of the independent coast cities, the Troad, and apparently the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Patmos, Cos and others near the Asia Minor coast (Act_16:6; Act_19:10, Act_19:27). It is exceedingly difficult to determine the exact boundaries of the several countries which later constituted the Roman province, for they seem to have been somewhat vague to the ancients themselves, and were constantly shifting; it is therefore impossible to trace the exact borders of the province of Asia. Its history previous to 133 bc coincides with that of Asia Minor of which it was a part. However, in that year, Attalus III (Philometer), king of Pergamos, bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman Empire. It was not until 129 bc that the province of Asia was really formed by Rome. Its first capital was Pergamos, the old capital of Mysia, but in the time of Augustus, when Asia had become the most wealthy province of the Empire, the seat of the government was transferred to Ephesus. Smyrna was also an important rival of Ephesus. The governor of Asia was a pro-consul, chosen by lot by the Roman senate from among the former consuls who had been out of office for at least five years, and he seldom continued in office for more than a single year. The diet of the province, composed of representatives from its various districts, met each year in the different cities. Over it presided the asiarch, whose duty it was, among other things, to offer sacrifices for the welfare of the emperor and his family.
In 285 ad the province was reduced in size, as Caria, Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia were separated from it, and apart from the cities of the coast little remained. The history of Asia consists almost entirely of the history of its important cities, which were Adramyttium, Assos, Cnidus, Ephesus, Laodicea, Miletus, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna, Thyatira, Troas, etc.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

The ancients had no divisions of the world into parts or quarters; and hence the word Asia, in the modern large sense, does not occur in Scripture. Indeed it does not at all occur, in any sense, in the Hebrew Scriptures, but is found in the books of the Maccabees and in the New Testament. It there applies, in the largest sense, to that peninsular portion of Asia which, since the fifth century, has been known by the name of Asia Minor; and, in a narrower sense, to a certain portion thereof which was known as Asia Proper. Thus, it is now generally agreed,? 1. That 'Asia' denotes the whole of Asia Minor, in the texts Act_19:26-27; Act_20:4; Act_20:16; Act_20:18; Act_27:2, etc.: but, 2. That only Asia Proper, the Roman or Proconsular Asia, is denoted in Act_2:9; Act_6:9; Act_19:10; Act_19:22; 2Ti_1:15; 1Pe_1:1; Rev_1:4; Rev_1:11.
Asia Minor comprehended Bithynia, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cicilia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Mysia, Troas (all of which are mentioned in the New Testament), Lydia, Ionia, ?olis (which are sometimes included under Lydia), Caria, Doris, and Lycia.
Asia Proper, or Proconsular Asia, comprehended the provinces of Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia. But it is evident that St. Luke uses the term Asia in a sense still more restricted, for in one place he counts Phrygia (Act_2:9-10), and in another Mysia (Act_16:6-7), as provinces distinct from Asia. Hence it is probable that in many, if not all, of the second set of references the word Asia denotes only Ionia, or the entire western coast, of which Ephesus was the capital, and in which the seven churches were situated. This is called Asia also by Strabo.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Asia
(Ασία, referred by the Greeks to a person, Herod. 4:45, but by moderns to an Eastern, usually Shemitic etymology, comp. Bochart, Phaleg, 4:33, p. 3379; Sickler, Alte Geogr. p. 89; Wahl, in the Hall. Encycl. 6:76 sq.; Forbiger, Alte Geogr. ii, 39; Hitzig, Philist. p. 93), a geographical name which is employed by the writers of. antiquity to denote regions of very different extent, designating as early as the time of Herodotus (iv, 36) an entire continent, in contrast with Europe and Africa (comp. Josephus, Ant. 14:10, 1), the boundaries of which have been clearly defined (Forbiger, Alte Geogr. ii, 39) since the descriptions of Strabo (i, 35) and Ptolemy (iv, 5); in the Roman period, however, it was generally applied only to a single district of Western Asia (Asia Minor). It is in the latter sense alone that the word occurs in the Apocrypha (1Ma_8:6; 1Ma_11:13; 1Ma_12:39; 1Ma_13:32; 2Ma_3:3; 2Ma_10:24) and New Test. (Act_2:9; Act_6:9; Act_16:6; Act_19:10; Act_19:22; Act_19:26-27; Act_20:4; Act_20:16; Act_20:18; Act_21:27; Act_27:2; Rom_16:5 [where the true reading is 'Ασίας]; 1Co_16:19; 2Co_1:8; 2Ti_1:15; 1Pe_1:1; Rev_1:4; Rev_1:11).
1. CONTINENT OF ASIA. The ancient Hebrews were strangers to the division of the earth into parts or quarters, and hence we never find the word Asia in any Hebrew book. It occurs first in Biblical writers in the books of the Maccabees, and there in a restricted sense. In its widest application, however, as designating in modern geography a leading division of the globe, it is of the deepest interest in sacred literature. This part of the world is regarded as having been the most favored. Here the first man was created; here the patriarchs lived; here the law was given; here the greatest and most celebrated monarchies were formed; and from hence the first founders of cities and nations in other parts of the world conducted their colonies. In Asia our blessed Redeemer appeared, wrought salvation for mankind, died, and rose again; and from hence the light of the Gospel has been diffused over the world. Laws, arts, sciences, and religions almost all have had their origin in Asia. SEE ETHNOLOGY.
I. Geographical Description.-Asia, which forms the eastern and northern portion of the great tract of land in the eastern hemisphere, is the oldest known portion of the globe, and is usually called the cradle of the human race, of nations, and of arts. It is separated from Australia by the Indian and Pacific Oceans; from America on the north-east by Behring's Straits, and on the east by the great Eastern or Pacific Ocean; from Africa by the Arabian Sea (at the west by the Mediterranean Sea) and by the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea, with the Straits of Babelmandeb; from Europe by the Kaskaia Gulf (at the extreme north-west), by the Caspian Sea and the River Ural, by the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, by the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles, and by the Grecian Archipelago. It is united with Africa by the desert Isthmus of Suez, and with Europe by the lofty Caucasian Mountains and the long Ural range. The area is, about 16,175,000 square miles.
The inhabitants of Asia (whose number is variously estimated at from 500,000,000 to 800,000,000) are divided -into three great branches: The Tatar-Caucasian, in the Western Asia, exhibits the finest features of our race in the Circassian fom; the Mongolian race is spread through Eastern Asia; the Malay in Southern Asia and the islands. The north is inhabited by the Samoiedes, Tchooktches, and others. The following tribes, of different language and origin, may be distinguished, some of which are relics of scattered tribes of nomades: Kamtschatdales, Ostiacs, Samoiedes, Koriacks, Kurilians, Aleutians, Coreans, Mongols, and Kalmucks, Mantchoos (Tungoos, Daurians, and Mantchoos Proper), Finns, Circassians, Georgians, Greeks, Syrians and Armenians, Tatars and Turks, Persians and Afghans, Thibetans, Hindoos, Siamese, Malays, Annamites (in Cochin China and Tonquin), Burmese, Chinese and Japanese, besides the indigenous inhabitants of the East Indian islands, Jews and Europeans. The principal languages are the Arabian, Persian, Armenian, Turkish, Tatar, Hindoo, ,Malayan, Mongol, ai antchoo, Chinese, and Sanscrit. The principal reliions which prevail are Mohammedanism in the western parts, the worship of the Lama of Thibet in the central region, Buddhism in the Burmese territory, and Hindooism or Brahminism in India. For farther details and statistics of the Asiatic countries, see each in its alphabetical place, especially Turkey, Persia, China, and India.
From this great continent must undoubtedly have issued at some unknown period that extraordinary emigration which peopled America. It cannot be questioned that the inhabitants of the north-eastern parts of Asia, little attached to the soil, and subsisting chiefly by hunting and fishing, might pass either in their canoes in summer, or upon the ice in winter, from their own country to the American shore. Or a passage of this kind may not be necessary, for it is by no means unlikely that the Straits of Behring were formerly occupied by the land, and that the isthmus which joined the old world to the new was subverted and overwhelmed by one of those great revolutions of nature which shake whole continents, and extend the dominion of the sea to places where its waters are unknown. Dr. Prichard, in his Researches into the Physical History of Man, is decidedly of opinion that America was peopled by an Asiatic migration; and in the examples he gives of the coincidences of words, he has fully established the fact of an intercourse between the nations of Northern Asia and those of America, long before the very existence of the latter continent was known to modern Europe. Later investigations have, almost without exception, tended to confirm this conclusion.
The Scriptures make no mention of many of the empires and nations of Asia, such as the Chinese empire, the Hindoos, and the numerous tribes inhabiting the extensive region of Siberia or Asiatic Russia. India is mentioned in the Book of Esther, but only in reference to- the extensive dominions of Ahasuerus. The Medo-Persian branch of the Indo-European nations who inhabited Asia, of whom were-the Medes and ancient Persians, Parthians, and Armenians, are, however, mentioned in sacred history; and among the nations of Asia Minor we have the Phrygians, the Mysians, and the Bithynians. Of the ancient western Asiatic nations, those connected with sacred history are the Elamites, or descendants of Elam; the Assyrians, or descendants of Ashur; Hebrews and Idumaeans, or Edomites; Beni-Jaktan, or Arabs; the Chasdim, or Chaldaeans; the Aramaeans, who inhabited Syria and Mesopotamia; the Phoenicians, or descendants of Canaan; the Mizraim, or the Egyptians; the Cushites, or Ethiopians; and the Philistines. Of the ancient empires mentioned in the Scriptures, the Assyrian is the earliest, so called from Asshur, the son of Shem. Out of the empire founded by Naimrod at Babylon sprung the Babylonian or Chaldaean, the capital of which was Babylon, while that of Assyria was Nineveh. The empire of the Medes also sprung, from the Assyrian, and was at length united by Cyrus with Persia, a country which, previous to the reign of that great prince, did not contain more than a single province of the present extensive kingdom, and a hich continued to rule over Asia upward of two centuries, until its power was overthrown by Alexander the Great. Elam, which originally denoted the country of the Elymaei in the modern Khusistan, afterward became the Hebrew term for Persia and the Persians, who were allied to the Madai or Medes. The other nations of Asia mentioned in the Scriptures have each their appropriate designations, such as the Arphaxad, or Arph-Chesad, supposed to be the Chaldzeans; the Lud or Ludim, alleged by Josephus and Bochart to be the Lydians; and the Aramites or the Syrians. The Asiatic countries more especially mentioned as the scenes of great events and important transactions are Arabia, Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, Syria, and Judaea or Palestine, Phoenicia and Persia. See each in its alphabetical order.
II. Church History.-Christianity spread rapidly in the first centuries in Western Asia, which, after the times of Constantine, belonged among the Christi n countries. The apostolic churches of Antioch (q.v.) and Jerusalem (q.v.) received along with Rome and Alexandria the rank of patriarchates. The diocese of Asia, of which Ephesus was the metropolis, was reckoned next in rank to the four patriarchates up till the council of Chalcedon, which subordinated the diocese to the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries the Nestorians and Monophysites were excluded by ecumenical synods from the Church, and organized themselves as independent denominations, which still exist. SEE NESTORIANS; SEE ARMENIANS; SEE JACOBITES.
Down to the twelfth century the churches of Western Asia were still in a moderately flourishing condition; but about that time the Saracens succeeded in establishing several principalities, which were the cause of sad desolation to the Church. The Turks, who succeeded, completed the wreck. For the Church history of the following centuries, we refer, besides to the articles already mentioned, to SEE TURMEY; SEE GREEK CHURCH.
Also in other portions of Asia the Gospel was early proclaimed, and Christianity flourished for some time in Persia, till it succumbed to the rising power of Mohammedanism. The outposts of Christianity in China and India, which probably reach back to an early period, were lost sight of by the Latin and Greek churches. The Roman Church, in the Middle Ages and modern times, made great effort to unite with itself the churches of Western Asia, and to convert the pagans in various Asiatic countries. She succeeded in most of the Portuguese and Spanish possessions, and founded a number of dioceses in other countries. The history of Protestantism begins with the establishment of the rule of the East India Company; and in the nineteenth century its missions have developed on so large a scale that the time appears to be near when it will have the ascendency in a large portion of Eastern Asia. For more details on the history of both the Roman and the Protestant churches, we refer to the articles SEE PERSIA; SEE CHINA; SEE INDIA; SEE FARTHER INDIA; SEE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO; SEE JAPAN.
III. Ecclesiastical Statistics.-The following tabular survey of the total Christian population is taken from the latest accessible sources (1880), the number of Mohammedans in Asia being about 115,144,000.

Countries
Sum.
Rom.Cath
Protestant
Eastern
Russia
13,471,000
51,000
15,000
5,941,000
Turkey
16,170,000
260,000
25,000
3,000,000
Persia
7,000,000
10,000
3,000
50,000
China and Depend-encies
435,000,000
483,000
50,000
5,000
Japan
34,338,000
21,000
4,000
6,000
Burmah
21,000,000
480,000


Siam
5,750,000
25,000
4,000
6,000
British possessions
243,898,000
1,264,000
2,600,000
400,000
French “
2,770,000
300,000


Spanish “
6,300,000
5,501,000


Portuguese “
882,000
350,000


Dutch “
26,745,000
80,000
170,000

Other Countries
17,443,000



Totals
834,767,000
8,830,000
2,868,000
9,402,000

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. Nestorians 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 1859 it was asserted that 30,000 native Christians had been discovered in the island of Celebes. Buddhism, Brahminism, and the other religious systems of India, China, and Japan, count together a population of about 600 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 nearly 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, AEgaean, and Mediterranean Seas, and now forming a part of Turkey. Respecting the Biblical notices of this district we have to remark:
(a) Antiochus the Great is called king of Asia in 1Ma_8:6; 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 Macedonian princes as a Persian province), but was compelled (B.C. 189) to relinquish all the Asiatic districts west of the Taurus to the Romans (Liv. 38:38; 1Ma_8:8), who committed Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia to Eumenes (II), king of Pergamus (Liv. 37:55; 38:39). Hence
(b) the kingdom of Pergamus was called the Asiatic empire, although the Syrian Seleucidae, who only occupied Cilicia, likewise (perhaps only out of empty pretence) assumed this title (1Ma_12:39; 1Ma_13:32; 2Ma_3:3), and so the empires of Egypt and Asia are found in contrast (1Ma_13:13).
(c) By the will of Attalus (III) Philometor (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 termedc simply 'Asia cis Tanurum" (comp. Cicero, Flacc. 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 praetor until the Emperor Augustus made it a proconsular province. In this extent it is styled Asia Proper (ἡ ἰδίως καλουμένη Α᾿σία, Ptolem. v, 2; comp. Strabo, 12:577). To this connection appear to belong the following passages of the N.T. Act_6:9 (where Asia and Cilicia are names of Roman provinces in Asia Minor); 20:16; 1Pe_1:1 (see Steiger, in loc.); Rev_1:4; comp. 2 and 3, 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 Lucke, Ofenbar. Joh. p. 201; comp. T. Smith, Septemn Asice 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. 16:6; see Wiggers, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, i, 169), it appears to denote Phryia, 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 2Co_1:8, is uncertain, and, moreover, the boundaries of Asia Minor varied at different periods (see Mannert, VI, ii, 15 -sq.; Wetstein, ii, 464). Thus it may be retarded as pretty well settled:
(1.) That "Asia" denotes the whole of ASIA MINOR, in the texts Act_19:26-27; Act_21:27; Act_24:18; Act_27:2; but
(2.), that only ASIA PROPER, the Roman or Proconsular Asia, is denoted in Act_2:9; Act_6:9; Act_16:6; Act_19:10; Act_19:22; Act_20:4; Act_20:16; Act_20:18 [Rom_16:5]; 1Co_16:19; 2Co_1:8; 2Ti_1:15; 1Pe_1:1; Rev_1:4; Rev_1:11. ASIA MINOR comprehended Bithynia, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Mysia, Troas (all of which are mentioned in the New Testament), Lydia, Ionia, AEolis (which are sometimes included under Lydia), Caria, Doris, and Lycia. ASIA PROPER, or Proconsular Asia, comprehended the provinces of Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia (Cicero, Ep. Fam. ii, 15). But it is evident that Luke uses the term Asia in a sense still more restricted; for in one place he counts Phrygia (Act_2:9-10), and in another Mysia (Act_16:6-7), as provinces distinct from Asia. Hence it is probable that in many, if not all, of the second set of references above, the word Asia denotes only Ionia, or the entire western coast, of which Ephesus was the capital, and in which the seven churches were situated. See generally, Usher, De Asia proconsulari (Lond. 1681); id. De episcop. metropol. in Asia proconsulari (Lond. 1687); Carpzov, De Asice ecclesis (Lips. 1698); Cellarius, id. (Hal. 1701); Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul, i, 237; Penny Cyc. s.v. Anatolia; Smith's Diet. of Class. Geogr. i, 232 sq., 238 sq.; Texier, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1863); Le Bas and Cbheron, Hist. Ancienne de I'As. Min. (Par. 1864); Perrot, Voyage en As. Min. (Paris, 1864).
3. PROCONSULAR ASIA, therefore, seems to be usually that designated in the New Test., being a Roman province which embraced the western part of the peninsula of Asia Minor, and of which Ephesus was the capital. This province originated in the bequest of Attalus, king of Pergamus, or king of Asia, who left by will to the Roman Republic his hereditary dominions in the west of the peninsula (B.C. 133). Some rectifications of the frontier were made, and "Asia" was constituted a province. Under the early emperors it was rich and flourishing, though it had been severely plundered under the republic. In the division made by Augustus of senatorial and imperial provinces, it was placed in the former class, and was governed by a proconsul. (Hence ἀνθύπατοι, Act_19:38, and on coins.) It contained many important cities, among which were the seven churches of the Apocalypse, and it was divided into assize districts for judicial business. (Hence ἀγοραῖοι, i.e. ἡμέραι, Acts, ibid.) It is not possible absolutely to define the inland boundary of this province during the life of the' Apostle Paul; indeed, the limits of the provinces were frequently undergoing change; but generally it may be said that it included the territory anciently subdivided into AEolis, Ionia, and Doris, and afterward into Mysia, Lydia, and Caria. SEE MYSIA; SEE LYCIA; SEE BITHYNIA; SEE PHRYGIA; SEE GALATIA. These were originally Greek colonies (see Smith's Smaller Hist. of Greece, p. 40 sq.). Meyer (in his Comment. on Act_16:6) unnecessarily imagines that the divine intimation given to Paul had reference to the continent of Asia, as opposed to Europe, and that the apostle supposed it might have reference simply to "Asia cis Taurum," and therefore attempted to penetrate into Bithynia. The view of Meyer and De Wette on Act_27:2 (and of the former on Act_19:10), viz. that the peninsula of Asia Minor is intended, involves a bad geographical mistake; for this term "Asia Minor" does not seem to have been so applied till some centuries after the Christian era. Neither is it strictly correct to speak of Asia in the N.T. as being at that time called A. proconsularis; for this phrase also was of later date, and denoted one of Constantine's subdivisions of the province of which we are speaking. (See Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul, ch. xiv; Marquardt's Roim. Alterthiimer, iii, 130-146.) SEE ASIARCH. 4. SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. — These, celebrated in the Apocalypse, in the apostolic times, and in ecclesiastical history, were, as they are classified by the writer of the book of Revelation (ch. i-iii), Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, which see under the respective names. SEE ASIA MINOR (No. 2, above); see REVELATION.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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