That's a Good Question

  • St. Paul sacrifices to preach the Gospel

    Where is Lystra, where they thought St. Paul was a god?
    The town of Lystra lies in central Turkey. This is where St. Paul and St. Barnabas fled to from Iconium where the Gentiles and Jews were trying to kill them. At Lystra there was a man lame from birth who never walked. St. Paul called out to him “Stand up. On your feet.” Suddenly the man jumped up and walked around. When the crowds saw this miracle, they thought St. Paul and St. Barnabas were gods in the form of men. They called Barnabas Zeus or Jupiter and Paul Hermes or Mercury. Even the local priest of the god Zeus, whose temple stood just outside the town, brought oxen and garlands to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.
    Paul and Barnabas then shouted “We are only men. We want to bring you the good news about the living God.”

    M. Pennock mentions that the first-century Roman poet Ovid speaks of a legendary visit of the gods Zeus and Hermes to Lystra. The gods came disguised and asked for lodging, but everyone refused. Then they found a tiny hut where the elderly peasants fed them. The gods then punished the unfriendly locals, but transformed the hut of the peasants into a magnificent temple. Maybe the people knew this legend and that is why they thought Paul and Barnabas were gods.

    Then some Jews from Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium came to Lystra and strongly criticized St. Paul’s preaching about Jesus. These Jews may have come to Lystra to purchase grain, since this town was famous for its grain crops. The Jews won over the crowd who stoned Paul and dragged him out of Lystra, leaving him for dead. But Paul rose up well and headed for the town of Derbe the next day.

    Scholars are not sure of the exact location of Lystra. A. Edmonds says some suggest the village of Gilistra, 35 kilometers southwest of Iconium, where St. Paul had previously been. Others propose the village of Ilistra, further south. About 6 B.C. the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus put soldiers in Lystra to protect the people against the tribes and bandits from the Taurus Mountains to the south. St. Paul says he had been beset with danger from robbers.

    After St. Paul left Derbe, he returned to Lystra, even though it was dangerous, to encourage the disciples there and to install presbyters who would perform liturgical rites, such as the Holy Eucharist. Later on, during his second missionary journey, St. Paul again returned to Lystra, where he met a young disciple named Timothy. Timothy became a close friend of St. Paul and was made the bishop of Ephesus in Turkey, the fourth largest city of the Roman Empire at this time. St. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy, contained in the New Testament, where he shows the sacrament of Holy Orders via the imposition of hands.

    Posted on July 27, 2010, to:

  • St. Paul escapes stoning at Iconium

    Where is Iconium where St. Paul and St. Barnabas were almost killed?
    The city of Iconium is in central Turkey or ancient Asia Minor. Today it is called Konya and it is a large, heavily Muslim city with 2 million people, making it the fourth largest city in Turkey.  When I was in Konya, there was a riot going on, but no one seemed to get hurt. In Konya is a beautiful small modern Catholic Church called St. Paul’s. Fortunately the pastor there spoke English and said that many German Catholic construction workers stationed in Konya would attend Mass there. D. Darke says Konya is Turkey’s most religious city and the center of the carpet trade. 

    In Iconium, St. Paul and St. Barnabas c. A.D. 50 spoke in the Jewish synagogue about Jesus and convinced many Jews and Greeks. But some of the townspeople disagreed with Paul and Barnabas and planned to stone them to death. So Paul and Barnabas fled to another town. A legend says that St. Paul met St. Thecla in Iconium, and she wanted to be baptized. For her safety, too, St. Thecla had to flee Iconium and follow St. Paul to Antioch in Syria. 

    E. Blake says Iconium is on the western edge of a great plain where clouds of dust in summer and blizzards of snow in winter sometimes sweep across the city. It is an extremely old city going back to the Hittite times in the third millennium B.C. G. Horobin points out various places of interest in the modern city of Konya. There is the Mevlana Tekke monastery with a fountained court, the cells of the monks, the coffins of the abbots, a chapel and a manuscript room. Next door is the Selimiye Mosque from A.D. 1566, whose substantial columns rise to a high dome. Further on is the Serafettin Cami, or open-style mosque with side chapels and a central dome. A distance away is the large circular Aladdin Park with the Aladdin mosque on the park’s hill. Inside this park are the remains of a Seljuk palace. There are many museums in Konya dealing with stone and wood carvings, ceramics and tile, carved tombstones, archaeology and human culture. Modern Konya is especially famous for the “Whirling dervishes,” where the novitiates of the Order of Dervishes attain their ultimate state of mystical perception in a formal dance.

    H. Hoefer mentions that outside of Konya is the former Greek village of Sille where you can see the remains of the Church of St. Michael from 1732 and a series of hermit caves.

    Further on is the village of Madensehir with its Byzantine and Roman monastic ruins called “A Thousand and One Churches.”

    Posted on June 15, 2010, to:

  • St. Paul preaches in Perga

    Why did St. Paul sail to Perga on his first missionary journey?
    The Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament says that St. Paul, St. Barnabas, John and Mark set sail from the city of Paphos on the island of Cyprus to the city of Perga (or Perge) in southern Turkey (or ancient Asia Minor) in A.D. 46. Perga was a stepping stone to other cities in central Turkey that St. Paul wanted to visit and preach the gospel.
    Perga was purposely a little inland from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, so it would be more protected from pirates and invaders. To reach Perga from the Mediterranean Sea, you would sail up the Cestrus river, navigable in St. Paul’s time, and there on a rise you would see the utterly magnificent city of Perga. St. Paul also could have chosen to land at one of the nearby seaports of Attalia (now Antalya) or Side, but the Bible does not specify his exact route to Perga. When St. Paul eventually left Turkey on his first missionary journey, the Bible does say he left from Attalia.

    Perga is a beautiful and well-preserved archaeological site. Its main streets were over 21 meters wide. The main entrance into the city is huge, allowing many chariots with their horses to parade in side by side celebrating their victories in war.

    E. Blake mentions the main streets of Perga were lined with colonnades and a water channel ran down their center in a series of small waterfalls. Behind the colonnades stood the shops. The stadium and theater at Perga still survive. The stadium, seating 14,000 people, is one of the best preserved in Turkey. The theater held 15,000 people. There was a large and beautiful Temple of Artemis, in the time of St. Paul, but it has not yet been located.

    D. Darke mentions at Perga you see the Roman baths, the agora or marketplace, and granite columns. There are the ruins of a basilica where St. Paul is said to have delivered his first sermons on the Asia Minor mainland and won his first converts here.

    There is the nymphaeum, from which the water channel down the center of the main street was fed. There is also a palaestra or open courtyard by the gymnasium where exercises were done. The tombs at Perga are laid out in the normal way, beside the roads leading to the city gates. Then there are the ruins of the tomb of Plankia Magna, the second century A.D. priestess of Artemis who held the highest office in Perga, that of demiurge or magistrate.

    A. Edmonds mentions another famous resident of Perga, namely Apollonius, a third century B.C. astronomer and mathematician who believed that the moon went around the earth as the earth went around the sun. His ideas were rediscovered during the Renaissance.

    M. Grant says the Christian martyr Nestor died at Perga during the persecution of the Roman emperor Decius in A.D. 251. The line of Perga’s bishops known by name goes back to the fourth century A.D. In the seventh century A.D. Arabs conquered Perga and most of the population left for the seaport of Antalya. 

    Posted on May 25, 2010, to:

  • Seleucia mentioned in Acts of the Apostles

    What did Seleucia, the port of Antioch, look like at the time of St. Paul?
    Seleucia is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament as the port from which St. Paul and St. Barnabas set sail toward the island of Cyprus on their first missionary journey. This Seleucia is called Seleucia Pieria and also Samandag. It served as the seaport for Antioch, the third largest city in the Roman empire at the time of St. Paul.

    A. Edmonds says this Seleucia was located at the mouth of the Orontes River in eastern Turkey on rocks which form a cliff above the Mediterranean Sea at the foot of Mt. Pieria (or Musa Dagi). There were ruins of a fort here in 300 B.C. Ishenderun is presently the main port for Antioch.

    M. Grant says that Seleucia was famous for a sanctuary of the god Zeus on Mount Cassius at the end of the bay that was the scene of annual festivals. The sacred stone and shrine of the cult are depicted on local coinage. Other coins show a temple of the city goddess Tyche (or Astarte). There is a large Doric temple, whose foundations still survive. That seem to dominate the site.

    At Seleucia there are ramparts, bast ions, gates and tombs of Roman notables. You can see the remains of the Roman emperor Vespasian’s water system. There are also Roman villas with fine mosaics along the slopes of the upper town. You can see the foundations of a cruciform Christian martyr’s shrine from the later fifth century A.D. Seleucia may have comprised 6,000 adult citizens.

    E. Blake says Seleucia was named after Seleucus Nicator, a distinguished officer under Philip of Macedonia. He accompanied Alexander the Great on his Asian expedition and he became the founder of the Seleucid dynasty that ruled Syria from 312-64 B.C. Seleucus fostered Greek civilization and culture.

    There is another city called Seleucia of Isauria or Silifke that pertains to St. Paul. This city lies west of Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, in southeast Turkey. Here St. Thecla is said to have been buried in the cemetery near the fifth-century basilica in the nearby hill of Meriamlik. According to the “Acts of Paul and Thecla,” written in the second century A.D., St. Thecla was converted by St. Paul in Iconium, a city in central Turkey now called Konya. Tradition says St. Thecla, a Christian virgin, set up a nunnery outside of Seleucia and was so effective in performing miraculous cures that the doctors of the town went out of business.

    M. Grant describes twelve different ancient towns called Seleucia. It was common in the ancient world to name your city after a wealthy and important ruler, for he may visit the city and endow it with much funding. The town of Gadara where Jesus chased the demons into the swine was called Seleucia for a while.

    Posted on May 5, 2010, to:

  • Sts. Paul and Barnabas in Cyprus

    By Father Richard Hire

    What are the Christian sites pertaining to St. Paul and St. Barnabas on the island of Cyprus?
    In the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, St. Paul and St. Barnabas are residing at Antioch in Syria (now Antakya in Turkey), the third largest city of the Roman empire at this time. Paul and Barnabas were chosen to go on their first missionary journey. They left Antioch and went down to the port of Seleucia on the Mediterranean Sea. From here they set sail for the island of Cyprus. On their arrival in Salamis, they proclaimed the Gospel in the Jewish synagogues.

    In ancient Roman times, Salamis was Cyprus’s main commercial center. St. Barnabas was a native son of Salamis. He is credited with introducing Christianity to Cyprus. He was martyred here by stoning c. A.D. 75. The ruins of ancient Salamis is an extensive archaeological site. Here you see the gymnasium, baths, the odeion, the amphitheater holding 5,000 people, a Roman villa, Byzantine cisterns, the Temple of Zeus, basilicas, a stadium, the early city walls and a marketplace.

    At Salamis you can visit the monastery and museum of the apostle Barnabas. M. Dubin says a monastic community first grew up here in the 5th century A.D. following the discovery of the purported tomb of St. Barnabas. Funds were provided for the construction by the Byzantine emperor. The Arabs destroyed this church in the 7th century A.D. The present church and cloister date from 1756.

    Near this monastery stands a small, undecorated little mausoleum chapel, shaded by a carob tree and erected in the 1950s over a catacomb that is the presumed tomb of Barnabas. Stairs lead down to rock-cut chambers with room for six bodies. Tradition says this tomb was discovered when St. Barnabas appeared in a dream to the Archbishop of Salamis and bid him unearth the saint’s remains from a lonely spot marked by a carob tree. The archbishop indeed found a catacomb matching the description and containing what could well have been the bones of Barnabas, clasping a mildewed copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew to his chest.

    The Acts of the Apostles then says that Paul and Barnabas traveled over the whole island of Cyprus as far as Paphos where they preached the Gospel to the governor Sergius Paulus. A Jewish magician or sorcerer objected to Paul’s teaching, so Paul temporarily blinded him. The governor was impressed and believed in Christ. M. Dubin says that, although Paul was successful in converting the governor, he seems to have had a hard time combating the pagan goddess Aphrodite’s love-cult at Paphos and was reputedly scourged for his troubles on the site of the Byzantine basilica called Ayia Kiriaki. Here you see extensive 4th century A.D. mosaics and some columns, including one called “St. Paul’s Pillar,” because of the tradition that St. Paul was tied to it and scourged.

    At Paphos they have also uncovered an extensive complex of Roman buildings with exquisite floor mosaics on ancient mythology considered perhaps the best in the eastern Mediterranean. Other sites of Paphos include a lighthouse, the marketplace, a castle, the old customs house, the Roman odeion and Turkish baths.

    Posted on April 6, 2010, to: