Exploring Antioch - A modern scholar answers age old questions

For many years I had longed to visit the places St Paul visited during his 'First Missionary Journey'. I had been to 'Second Missionary' sites like Alexandrian Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens and Corinth. Likewise I had walked the streets of Ephesus where the 'Third Mission' was centred. And I had imagined him in Jerusalem learning at the feet of Gamaliel and departing from but also imprisoned in Caesarea Maritima. But the Pisidian cities of Antioch and Iconium and the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe? No, that had not been my pleasure. Too far off the 'beaten track.'

Perhaps such a visit would help answer a question that had lain unanswered at the back of my mind for many years, a puzzle, I suspect for many who had tried to work out Paul's theory for his missionary enterprise in central Anatolia. Why did Paul strike so far inland to such a remote place as Pisidian Antioch to launch that 'First Mission'? What possible reason could he have had for ignoring ministry opportunities in the numerous Roman settlements in Pamphylia, cities like Perge, Attalia, Side or Aspendos? Or, why did he not sail on round the corner into the ports of the Aegean, Ephesos for example, or Troas, or Philippi or Corinth where was destined to come within a few years? Why struggle up through the daunting Taurus Mountains along a narrow Roman road to such an out of the way place as Antioch-in-Pisidia?

At last my dream is a reality. A once in a lifetime opportunity has come. With my wife Anita and good friends Greg and Margaret Shepherd we drive from Ankara across the treeless plains of Anatolia through Konya to Yalvaç in the rolling high country bounded by the Sultan Dagh range and Lake Egidir. By great privilege we were the guests for the day of the distinguished archaeologist Dr Mehmet Tashlialan, Director of the Museum at Yalvaç and Supervisor of the 'dig' at ancient Antiocheia since 1979.

During that memorable day we drive up to the stony remains of the Temple of Men 2,000 metres above Yalvaç / Antioch surrounded on all sides by distant snow capped peaks. Beneath us are patches of cultivation and groves of walnut and apricot about to burst into blossom. We catch glimpses of Lake Beyshehir to the south east and Lake Egedir to the south west. Then from the south I see the road that St Paul must have traveled up from Perge on the coast. In my imagination I see him with his companion Barnabas on horseback riding towards Roman city Pisidian Antioch to the west of our high vantage point just beyond the present town, Yalvaç.

'Can you help me with my question, Mehmet,' I ask the scholar. 'Why did St Paul come here, to Antioch-in-Pisidia '?

He replies immediately. 'When you understand Antiocheia you will understand why he came.'

A long time admirer of St Paul, Mehmet has retraced the steps of the Christian apostle from Perge to the city below us. And he knows why Paul came here. Mehmet 's great predecessor in Antioch was Sir William Ramsay who visited the site repeatedly between 1880 and 1920. Ramsay thought that Paul had contracted Malaria in the swampy lowlands around Perge on the Pamphylian Plains. (This was Paul's famous but unidentified 'thorn in the flesh' according to Ramsay.) Mehmet gives some credence to the 'Malaria' hypothesis. But I have problems. The book of Acts conveys a sense of high intention: 'Paul came to Perge ... and passing through from Perge came to Pisidian Antioch...' He came to Perge for one reason, to travel on to Antioch. But was that the reason?

Ramsay had correctly identified Pisidian Antioch as a Roman colony, as Colonia Caesareia Antiocheia but he had mis-identified critical elements of the site, for example, the Temple of Augustus. Above all, because he did not do much actual excavation and cleaning of stone he underestimated significantly the size and importance of the ancient city. For Ramsay, Antiocheia was 'an unsightly ruin' and a 'desolate site.' By these words the immensely influential Ramsay unintentionally yet effectively deflected interest of three generations scholars from this place , that is, until the arrival of Dr Mehmet Tashlialan in 1979. Throughout the intervening years this scholar has worked closely with a number of international scholars, including the eminent Dr Stephen Mitchell.

While others before him worked on tangential issues like surviving sculptures and inscriptions, Mehmet applied himself more fundamentally to digging and cleaning within the established perimeters of the site so as to establish the outlines of the city. Dispel all cinema images of Indiana Jones with stockwhip riding into then out of romantic antique temples. The real work of archaeology is mundane, trivial, time consuming and painfully exacting.

What Dr Mehmet and his accociates have established reveals a very different city from that envisaged by Ramsay and those of his generation. We are now able to enter by the remains of a majestic triple gate to walk on the Cardo Maximus past a theatre seating fifteen thousand and a massive bath house to come to the pinnacle of the city, a huge Temple to Augustus himself set in a substantial open space. This was a city whose greater population must have exceeded one hundred thousand, which was home to no less than two legions and many thousands of legionary veterans. Augustus established it in 29 BC in the immediate aftermath of the critical battle of Actium in 31 BC by which he became the undisputed ruler of the Roman world. The signs of Actium's victory are everywhere to be seen.

A symbol of Antioch's greatness was the discovery that this city was one of the few to be honoured with the Emperor Augustus' inscription of his many achievements, his so-called Res Gestae, proudly on view at the Museum. In short, 20 years of painstaking labour on Ramsay's 'desolate site' has revealed a large, elegant and very important city. On entering this colony of Rome the traveller met Rome herself, in embryo as it were. Moreover, it is now clear that it was the hub of important converging roads from the south and the north, but more significantly from the west to the east. It is no exaggeration to say that for the overland traveller from the east Pisidian Antioch was the gateway to Rome.

Dr Tashlialan's 20 years of hard work on the site itself have made plain what remained obscured from Ramsay, despite 40 years familiarity with it. Now it is clear to Mehmet and to anyone who visits Antiocheia why St Paul came here. Paul came here because it was the first steppingstone from the east to Rome, the world-centre of the Gentiles, which he longed to visit to establish the Christian religion there. He sailed from Paphos in Cyprus to the coast of Pamphylia up the Kestros river to Perga the chief city of Pamphylia for only one reason, to travel through the Taurus mountains to come to Pisidian Antioch so that, having established Christianity in that city and its satellites, he could begin to move westwards to other Roman centres ulimately to arrive at the Eternal City, Rome, of which he was a free-born citizen.

But this prompts another question. 'Why did he come by that route? Why did he come via Cyprus? Why not from Tarsus through the Taurus by the 'Cilician Gates' as he did on his two subsequent visits to the now-established churches in Pisidia and Lycaonia?'

Mehmet also knows the answer to this question. Again the patient labours of the archaeologist provide the clue. In the Museum in Yalvaç he points to two inscriptions, one of which very visibly has a name that rivets my eyes to the stone. It is the name 'Sergius Paullus.' This is the name of the Senate-appointed Proconsul of the Province of Cyprus, whom St Paul had visited a few weeks prior to his arrival in Antiocheia. It is not clear from the inscriptions whether it was Sergius paulus himself or a son or grandson. But it is clear from two inscriptions that the Paulli family were domiciled in this city.

'The Paulli family were quite a force in this district,' comments Mehmet. In a flash it becomes clear - to me at least - why St Paul initially came to Antiocheia via Cyprus rather than by the overland route. Paul knew that he would need some kind of protection and patronage when he preached the controversial new religion in Antiocheia, especially in view of the the large and influential Synagogue community in the city, which included a substantial 'God-fearer' group. He visited Cyprus in the hope of some support from the governor who for the one year of his proconsular tenure was accessible to him ahead of a journey to a strategic region where that man and his family were highly influential. As it happened things turned out better than Paul may have dreamed. Sergius Paulus was converted to Christianity, historically the first public official in the empire to do so.

Suddenly something else falls into place for me. In Cyprus, upon meeting Sergius Paulus Saul of Tarsus changed his name to Paul, the name by which he will be forever known. Saul had been a Christian and a missionary for no less than 14 years. Why does he now change his name? Was it because he wished to acknowledge the moment when a Roman Proconsul adopted the new faith? Was it because he was now seriously headed Rome-wards and needed a Roman rather than a Jewish name? (Nonetheless, Paulus was a relatively uncommon Roman name). Was it because he wished to acknowledge the Paulli family in some special way in view of his intended visit to the Pisidian city where this family was prominent? One reason merges with the other, but the latter most likely was uppermost in the mind of St Paul.

The patient spade of Dr Mehmet Tashlialan of Yalvaç has now answered questions which have long puzzled readers of the Bible. We now know why he came of Pisidian Antioch, why he came there initially by way of Cyprus and - most probably - why at that time in that place he changed his name to Paulus.