tian writers, who defended their own faith by attacking the vices and immorality taught in the pagan cults, found their best field of operations in the Phrygian Mysteries, and it is in this way that much of the information we possess on the subject has been transmitted. Their picture is in one sense not a true one, for it is incomplete and one-sided, giving professedly only the evil; but it is true in the sense that it invents nothing and describes real facts of the ritual; certain of the details are corroborated by pagan authorities, and the low character of the ritual as a whole was stigmatized quite as strongly by Greeks as by Christians.

It seems needless, here, to do more than point out that the inevitable result was to give to a Christian teacher like St. Paul, when he first began to speak in a Hellenized land, the appearance of being a philosophic teacher, who like many predecessors, was full of contempt and abhorrence for the debased superstitions of the native and non-Hellenic religion. This was the first impression that would spread in such a city as Iconium or Pisidian Antioch, as afterwards in Athens: here was a new popular lecturer on moral philosophy, who discussed the theory of life with other philosophers before the public. Inevitably, it soon became apparent in all those cities that this first impression was wrong. The philosophers were almost as hateful to Paul as the superstitious barbarian; and the reason was that they were all equally indulgent to idolatry. The philosopher, who had no real belief in any god, was perfectly ready to acquiesce in the barbarous ritual, or, at the best, to look for an element of thought in it, and shut his eyes to its abuses. If Paul's "spirit was provoked within him, as he beheld the city of Athens full of idols," it was not because idolatry was more rampant or worse in character there than elsewhere, but because in this centre of the world's education, where philosophy was

supreme, and where the best and most respected teachers were gathered-in that city which stood forth as most thoroughly governed by reason and thought-idolatry was just as completely dominant in religion as it had been among the half-Hellenized or un-Hellenized rabble in Lystra.

VII. CHRISTIANITY IN LYCAONIA AND ICONIUM.

The variation in the meaning and extension of the term Lycaonia at different periods is apt to be the cause of much difficulty. It has been pointed out that Iconium was not a Lycaonian city under the Roman Empire: it was a city of the Phrygian district of the Province Galatia from 25 B.C. to about 295 A.D., and the Province or district Lycaonia was distinct from it. From 295 to 372 it was a city, the second in rank, of the Province Pisidia. Only about 372 did it become a city of the Province Lycaonia, which had ceased to have any political existence between 295 and 372. But geographically Iconium is Lycaonian, the natural metropolis of the great Lycaonian plains; and under the Republic the Romans had treated it as such.

It will be convenient, while discussing Christian Lycaonia, to follow the mature organization of the Church, and to use the name Lycaonia in the Byzantine sense (later than 372 A.D.) as the Province whose metropolis was Iconium, and which extended from Seidi-Sheher Lake on the south-west to near the north end of Lake Tatta on the north-east, and to Laranda on the extreme south and south-east. This final organization was the recognition of a certain solidarity of the district (though the inclusion of Misthia, Vasada and Amblada on the south-east seems rather like a theft from Pisidia, and is not explicable with our present knowledge except as an arbitrary extension of Lycaonia).1

1 There may, of course, be some real ground for the inclusion, as yet unknown.

The spread of Christianity through Lycaonia is not merely an interesting subject in itself, but also throws some light back on the foundation of the Church in Lycaonia. Lycaonia is the only Province of the Empire whose Church was practically complete and fully developed as early as the fourth century. In the two great councils of the fourth century, held at Nicaea in 325 and at Constantinople in 381, Lycaonia was almost fully represented (taking the two together) in spite of the long landjourney which its bishops had to make. The only apparent absentee was the bishop of Verinopolis. But Verinopolis was not a city in that century; it was merely a village of the territory of Laodiceia until A D. 474, and it could have no bishop until it was raised to the rank of a city. were also several village bishops from Lycaonia present at Nicaea; but their villages are not named.

There

This great body of seventeen Lycaonian Churches, fully organized and probably forming a compact body in opinion as well as in geographical relation, must have been a strong force in the third and fourth centuries. With it was closely associated the neighbouring body of Pisidian bishops, of whom eighteen were present at one or other of the fourth century Councils, while six did not appear until the fifth or the seventh century.1 The latter are mostly towns of the mountain-region of Taurus or at least remote from the great roads; the former are for the most part situated directly on the great lines of communication, and connected closely with Antioch and the original Pauline Churches; but there are some marked exceptions. Still, the less mountainous part of Pisidia, a large territory, approximates to the completeness of ecclesiastical organization that appears in Lycaonia. Both attest the strong

1 The Pisidian bishoprics are described minutely in an article on Pisidia and the Lycaonian Frontier (Annual of the British School at Athens 1902–3, pp. 243 ff.). 2 These exceptions cannot be discussed here.

and lasting effect produced by St. Paul's original work. No province of the Empire was so strongly represented at those Councils in proportion to its number of bishoprics in its most fully developed period as Lycaonia. A glance

at the lists will prove that; but here it is not possible to quote more than one example. Contrast with this great body of thirty-five Lycaonian and Pisidian bishops, active at the Councils of the fourth century, the condition of Galatia during the same period. In Galatia eleven bishoprics cannot be traced before the fifth century; only seven Galatian bishops were present at the Councils of the fourth century, and of those seven one was originally Asian and two belonged to cities that lay so far south as to come under the influence of Iconium (as we shall see).1 Yet it was much easier for those Galatian bishops to be present at Nicaea or Constantinople than it was for the Lycaonian bishops. Galatia was so extensive that it was divided into two Provinces about 395 A.D.

Moreover Lycaonia was not yet a Province in 325: its bishops were divided between the Provinces of Galatia, Pisidia, and Isauria. Yet this broken and disunited region sent nine bishops to Nicaea, while the large and wealthy and populous Provinces of Asia and Lydia sent only eight each; and the two Provinces of Phrygia, teeming before with cities and afterwards with bishoprics, sent only eight between them. The fact that Phrygia sent so few bishops to the Councils of the fourth century, however, has probably a peculiar and pathetic explanation. It has been pointed out elsewhere3 that Phrygia seems to

1 Troknades, Asian until 295 A.D. Cinna, close to Lycaonia, and Gdamava, actually Lycaonian from 372 onwards, though reckoned to Galatia in 325.

2 The Galatian, absentees (with one exception) belonged to the western cities, nearest to Nicaea or Constantinople: Ancyra, with the eastern cities generally, sent bishops to the fourth century Councils.

3 Contemporary Review, Sept. 1896, p. 435; Cities and Bish. of Phrygia, ch. xii.

have suffered more than any other country during the last great persecution under Diocletian, only a few years before the Council of Nicaea. It was swept literally with fire and sword. Massacre carried to such a systematic and ruthless extreme had almost destroyed the organization of the Church in Phrygia. It is possible to exterminate a religion, as Christianity was exterminated in Japan in the sixteenth century; and the result in Phrygia was almost a complete destruction of the education and the intellectual element in the country1; the later Phrygian Christianity was mainly of a different type from the older, illiterate and standing apart from the development of the eastern Church.

From this preponderance in the fourth century it may be inferred with confidence that,

1. Lycaonia was very thoroughly Christianized; there had practically ceased to be a religious question of the older kind, owing to the almost total disappearance of the pagan; and the country was free to devote its attention to the consolidation of the Church as a whole :

2. Lycaonia was heartily on the "Orthodox” side (to use a bad but convenient term), and in favour of making the general consensus of the Church the supreme rule binding upon all.

The favourable situation of the Lycaonian Church in the fourth century can only be explained as the result of a long and steady development during the first three. Practically the sole evidence bearing on this process is in the distribution of early Christian inscriptions. These are very numerous, but they have not yet been properly collected and classified. I have personally copied most of them (about half of them during the last five years), and most of the others are due to my friend and old pupil, Mr. J. G. C. Anderson, who was in constant communication with me while he was travelling; hence I can speak from a

1 Cities and Bish. of Phrygia, ii. loc. cit.