road-system (which is the only evidence accessible) has been attained. It will, however, be useful to discuss

some conspicuous difficulties, which are likely to suggest themselves to every investigator.

The first is about Troas. Considering its importance as the doorway of Northwestern Asia, one might at first

expect to find that it was one of the Seven representative Churches. But a glance at the map will show that it

could not be worked into the primary circuit of the provincial messenger, except by sacrificing the ease and

immensely widening the area and lengthening the time of his journey. On the other hand Troas comes in

naturally on that secondary circuit which has Pergamum as its origin. The Pergamenian messenger followed

the Imperial Post road through Adramyttium, Assos and Troas, along the Hellespont to Lampsacus. There

the Post Road crossed into Europe, while the messenger traversed the coast road to Cyzicus, and thence

turned south through Poimanenon to Pergamum. This circuit is perhaps the most obvious and convincing of

the whole series, as the account of the roads and towns on it in the Historical Geography of Asia Minor will

bring out clearly.

The second difficulty relates to Tralleis and Magnesia. As the primary messenger had to pass through them,

why are they relegated to the secondary circuit of Ephesus? Obviously, the primary messenger would reach

them last of all; and long before he came to them the messenger on a secondary Ephesian circuit would have

reached them. Moreover, it is probable that the primary circuit was not devised simply with a view to the

Province of Asia, but was intended to be often conjoined with a further journey to Galatia and the East, so

that the messenger would not return from Laodicea to the coast, but would keep on up the Lycus by

Colossae eastwards.

Thirdly, Caria does not fit well in the secondary districts and circuits. It is so great that it seems to require

for itself one special circuit; and if so Tralleis was the one almost inevitable point of communication with the

primary circuit. Yet Tralleis was not one of the Seven Churches. But probably a distinction must be made.

Western Caria (Alabanda, Stratonicea and the coast cities) probably formed a secondary circuit along with

the Lower Meander Valley; and Ephesus was the starting point for it. On the other hand the eastern and

southern part of Caria lay apart from any of the great lines of communication: it was on the road to nowhere:

any one who went south from the Meander into the hilly country did so for the sake of visiting it, and not

because it was on his best way to a more distant goal. Now the new religion spread with marvellous rapidity

along the great routes; it floated free on the great currents of communication that swept back and forward

across the Empire, but it was slower to make its way into the back-waters, the nooks and corners o f the land:

it penetrated where life was busy, though was active, and people were full of curiosity and enterprise: it

found only a tardy welcome among the quieter and less educated rural districts. Hence that part of Caria was

little disturbed in the old ways, when most of the rest of Asia was strongly permeated with Christianity.

Fourthly, an immense region of Northern and Eastern Phrygia seems to be quite beyond any reasonably

easy communication with the primary circular route.

As to Northern Phrygia, it is extremely doubtful whether it had been much affected by the new religion when

the Seven Letters were written. It was a rustic, scantily educated region, which offered no favourable

opportunity for Christianity. Some, indeed, would argue that, as Bithynia was so strongly permeated with

the new religion, before AD 111, Phrygia which lies farther south and nearer the original seats of

Christianity, must have been Christianised earlier. This argument, however, ignores the way in which

Christianity spread, viz., along the main roads and lines of communication. The same cause, which made

Eastern Caria later in receiving the new faith (as shown above), also acted in Northern Phrygia. A study of

the interesting monuments of early Christianity in that part of the country has shown that it was

Christianised from Bithynia (probably not earlier than the second century), and it was therefore left out of

the early Asian system, as being still practically a pagan country. Southern Phrygia lay near the main Central

Route of the Empire, and its early Christian monuments show a markedly different character from the North

Phrygian monuments, and prove that it was Christianised (as was plainly necessary) from the line of the

great Central Highway. This part of Phrygia lay entirely in the Upper Meander Valley, and fell naturally

within the Laodicean circuit.