body, "chief officers of Asia," are mentioned as friends of St. Paul, and took his side against the mob of

worshippers of Ephesian Artemis, a typically Anatolian goddess.

Again Christianity in Asia expressed itself in Greek, not in any of the native languages. Although the

majority, probably, of the people of Phrygia spoke the Phrygian language and a large number of them were

entirely ignorant of Greek in the first century, yet there is no evidence and no probability that Christianity

ever addressed itself to them in Phrygian. St. Paul avoided Phrygia, with the exception of the two cities in

the Phrygian Region of the Roman Province Galatia, viz., Antioch and Iconium (Acts 16:6). The Church in

Asia was Greek-speaking, and had become, by the fourth century, the most powerful agent in making a

knowledge of Greek almost universal, even in the rural parts of the Province. The Greek character of the

entire Church in its earlier stages --for even the Church in Rome was mainly Greek in language until the

middle of the second century --was chiefly determined by the character of the Province Asia. The relation of

the Province to the Greek language therefore needs and deserves attention.

The Province of Asia included the most civilised and educated regions of the Asiatic continent, ancient and

famous Greek cities like Cyme, Colophon and Miletus, the realms of former lines of monarchs like the Lydian

kings at Sardis, the Attalid kings at Pergamum, and the Carian kings at Halicarnassus. It was the most

thoroughly Hellenised part of all Anatolia or Asia Minor. The native languages had died out in its western

parts, and been replaced by Greek; Lydian had ceased to be spoken or known in Lydia, when Strabo wrote

about AD 20; Carian was then probably unknown in the western parts of Caria, though the central and

eastern districts were not so far advanced. Mysia, the northwestern region of the Province, was probably in

a similar condition to Caria, the west and the coasts entirely Greek-speaking, the inner parts less advanced.

Most thoroughly Anatolian in character, and least affected by Greek civilisation, was Phrygia. West Phrygia

and especially the parts adjoining Lydia were most affected by Hellenism; whereas in the centre and east the

Greek language seems to have been hardly known outside the great cities until the late second or the third

century after Christ. Even in the western parts, it is proved that in the rustic and rough region of Motella,

not far from the Lydian frontier, Greek was strange to many of the country people at least as late as the

second century. In the extreme southwest of Phrygia, in the district of Cibyra, Strabo mentions that four

languages were spoken in the first century, viz., Greek, Pisidian, Solymian and Lydian. The last had died out

in Lydia, but survived in the speech of a body of Lydian colonists in Cibyra, just as Gaelic is more widely

preserved and more exclusively spoken in parts of Canada today than it is in the Highlands of Scotland.

But the great cities of the Province Asia (as distinguished from the rural parts), except a few of the most

backward Phrygian towns, were pretty thoroughly Greek in the first century after Christ; and everywhere

throughout the Province all education was Greek, and there was probably no writing except in Greek. It

seems to have been only in the second century that the native Anatolian feeling revived, and writing began

to be practised in the native tongues; at least all inscriptions in the Phrygian language (except those of the

ancient kingdom, before the Persian conquest) seem to be later than about AD 150.

Religion, too, was in outward appearance Hellenised in the cities; and the Anatolian deities were there

commonly called by Greek names. But this was only a superficial appearance; the ritual and the character of

the religion continued Anatolian even in the cities, while in the rural districts there was not even an outward

show of Hellenisation.

Thus, in the Province Asia, there was a great mixture of language, manners and religion. Apart form the

Roman unity, the various nations were as far from being really uniform in character and customs and

thought, as they were from being one in blood. The Imperial Government did not attempt to compel the

various peoples to use Latin o r any common language: it did not try to force Roman law or habits and ways

on the Province, still less to uproot the Greek civilisation. It was content to leave the half-Greek or Graeco-

Asiatic law and civilisation of Asia undisturbed. But it discouraged the national distinctions and languages;

it recognised Greek, but not Phrygian or Pisidian or Carian; it tried to make a unified Graeco-Roman Asia

Provincia out of that agglomeration of countries. The attempt failed ultimately; but it was made; it was the

ruling feature of administration in the first century; and the whole trend of Roman feeling and loyalty in all