Hemsen is very clear and satisfactory on this point, and presents the argument in a fair light. See his note in his “Apostel Paulus” on pp. 1, 2. He refers also to a work not otherwise known here;——John Ortwin Westenberg’s “Dissert. de jurisp. Paul. Apost.” Kuinoel in Act. Apost. xvi. 37. discusses the question of citizenship.
“It ought not to seem very strange, that the ancestors of Paul should have settled in Cilicia, rather than in the land of Israel. For although Cyrus gave the whole people of God an opportunity of returning to their own country, yet many from each tribe preferred the new country, in which they had been born and bred, to the old one, of which they had lost the remembrance. Hence an immense multitude of Jews might be found in almost all the dominions of the Persians, Greeks, Romans and Parthians; as alluded to in Acts ii. 9, 10. But there were also other occasions and causes for the dispersion of the Jews. Ptolemy, the Macedonian king of Egypt, having taken Jerusalem from the Syro-Macedonians, led away many from the hill-country of Judea, from Samaria and Mount Gerizim, into Egypt, where he made them settle; and after he had given them at Alexandria the rights of citizens in equal privilege with the Macedonians, not a few of the rest, of their own accord, moved into Egypt, allured partly by the richness of the land, and partly by the good will that Ptolemy had shown towards their nation. Afterwards, Antiochus the Great, the Macedonian king of Syria, about the thirtieth year of his reign, two hundred years before the Christian era, brought out two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia, whom he sent into Phrygia and Lydia with the most ample privileges, that they might hold to their duty the minds of the Greeks, who were then inclining to revolt from his sway. These were from Asia Minor, spread abroad over the surrounding countries, between the Mediterranean sea, the Euphrates and Mount Amanus, on the frontiers of Cilicia. Besides, others afterwards, to escape the cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes, betook themselves to foreign lands, where, finding themselves well settled, they and their descendants remained. Moreover, many, as Philo testifies, for the sake of trade, or other advantages, of their own accord left the land of Israel for foreign countries: whence almost the whole world was filled with colonies of Jews, as we see in the directions of some of the general epistles, (James i. 1: 1 Peter i. 1.) Thus also Tarsus had its share of Jewish inhabitants, among whom were the family of Paul.” (Witsius in Vita Pauli, § 1. ¶ v.)
Nor were the solid honors of this great Asian city, limited to the mere favors of imperial patronage. Founded, or early enlarged by the colonial enterprise of the most refined people of ancient times, Tarsus, from its first beginning, shared in the glories of Helleno-Asian civilization, under which philosophy, art, taste, commerce, and warlike power attained in these colonies a highth before unequalled, while Greece, the mother country, was still far back in the march of improvement. In the Asian colonies arose the first schools of philosophy, and there is hardly a city on the eastern coast of the Aegean, but is consecrated by some glorious association with the name of some Father of Grecian science. Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, and many others of the earliest philosophers, all flourished in these Asian colonies; and on the Mediterranean coast, within Cilicia itself, were the home and schools of Aratus and the stoic Chrysippus. The city of Tarsus is commemorated by Strabo as having in very early times attained great eminence in philosophy and in all sorts of learning, so that “in science and art it surpassed the fame even of Athens and Alexandria; and the citizens of Tarsus themselves were distinguished for individual excellence in these elevated pursuits. So great was the zeal of the men of that place for philosophy, and for the rest of the circle of sciences, that they excelled both Athens and Alexandria, and every other place which can be mentioned, where there are schools and lectures of philosophers.” Not borrowing the philosophic glory of their city merely from the numbers of strangers who resorted thither to enjoy the advantages of instruction there afforded, as is almost universally the case in all the great seats of modern learning; but entering themselves with zeal and enjoyment into their schools of science, they made the name of Tarsus famous throughout the civilized world, for the cultivation of knowledge and taste. Even to this day the stranger pauses with admiration among the still splendid ruins of this ancient city, and finds in her arches, columns and walls, and in her chance-buried medals, the solid testimonies of her early glories in art, taste and wealth. Well then might the great apostle recur with patriotic pride to the glories of the city where he was born and educated, challenging the regard of his military hearers for his native place, by the sententious allusion to it, as “NO MEAN CITY.”
“It appears on the testimony of Paul, (Acts xxi. 39,) that Tarsus was a city of no little note, and it is described by other writers as the most illustrious city of all Cilicia; so much so indeed, that the Tarsans traced their origin to Ionians and Argives, and a rank superior even to these;——referring their antiquity of origin not merely to heroes, but even to demi-gods. It was truly exalted, not only by its antiquity, situation, population and thriving trade, but by the nobler pursuits of science and literature, which so flourished there, that according to Strabo it was worthy to be ranked with Athens and Alexandria; and we know that Rome itself owed its most celebrated professors to Tarsus.” (Witsius. § 1, ¶ iv.)
The testimony of Strabo is found in his Geography, book XIV. Cellarius (Geog. Ant.) is very full on the geography of Cilicia, and may be advantageously consulted. Conder’s Modern Traveler (Syria and Asia Minor 2.) gives a very full account of its ancient history, its present condition, and its topography.
The present appearance of this ancient city must be a matter of great interest to the reader of apostolic history; and it can not be more clearly given than in the simple narrative of the enterprising Burckhardt, who wrote his journal on the very spot which he describes. (Life of Burckhardt, prefixed to his travels in Nubia, pp. xv. xvi.)
“The road from our anchoring place to Tarsus crosses the above-mentioned plain in an easterly direction: we passed several small rivulets which empty themselves into the sea, and which, to judge from the size of their beds, swell in the rainy season to considerable torrents. We had rode about an hour, when I saw at half an hour’s distance to the north of our route, the ruins of a large castle, upon a hill of a regular shape in the plain; half an hour further towards Tarsus, at an equal distance from our road, upon a second tumulus, were ruins resembling the former; a third insulated hillock, close to which we passed midway of our route, was over-grown with grass, without any ruins or traces of them. I did not see in the whole plain any other elevations of ground but the three just mentioned. Not far from the first ruins, stands in the plain an insulated column. Large groups of trees show from afar the site of Tarsus. We passed a small river before we entered the town, larger than those we had met on the road. The western outer gate of the town, through which we entered, is of ancient structure; it is a fine arch, the interior vault of which is in perfect preservation: on the outside are some remains of a sculptured frieze. I did not see any inscriptions. To the right and left of this gateway are seen the ancient ruined walls of the city, which extended in this direction farther than the town at present does. From the outer gateway, it is about four hundred paces to the modern entrance of the city; the intermediate ground is filled up by a burying ground on one side of the road, and several gardens with some miserable huts on the other. * * * * The little I saw of Tarsus did not allow me to estimate its extent; the streets through which I passed were all built of wood, and badly; some well furnished bazars, and a large and handsome mosque in the vicinity of the Khan, make up the whole register of curiosities which I am able to relate of Tarsus. Upon several maps Tarsus is marked as a sea town: this is incorrect; the sea is above three miles distant from it. On our return home, we started in a south-west direction, and passed, after two hours and a half’s march, Casal, a large village, half a mile distant from the sea-shore, called the Port of Tarsus, because vessels freighted for Tarsus usually come to anchor in its neighborhood. From thence turning towards the west, we arrived at our ship at the end of two hours. The merchants of Tarsus trade principally with the Syrian coast and Cyprus: imperial ships arrive there from time to time, to load grain. The land trade is of very little consequence, as the caravans from Smyrna arrive very seldom. There is no land communication at all between Tarsus and Aleppo, which is at ten journeys (caravan traveling) distant from it. The road has been rendered unsafe, especially in later times, by the depredations of Kutshuk Ali, a savage rebel, who has established himself in the mountains to the north of Alexandretta. Tarsus is governed by an Aga, who I have reason to believe is almost independent. The French have an agent there, who is a rich Greek merchant.”
A fine instance of the value of the testimony of the Fathers on points where knowledge of the Scriptures is involved, is found in the story by Jerome, who says that “Paul was born at Gischali, a city of Judea,” (in Galilee,) “and that while he was a child, his parents, in the time of the laying waste of their country by the Romans, removed to Tarsus, in Cilicia.” And yet this most learned of the Fathers, the translator of the whole Bible into Latin, did not know, it seems, that Paul himself most distinctly states in his speech to the Jewish mob, (Acts xxii. 3,) that he was “born in Cilicia,” as the common translation has it;——in Greek, γεγενημενος εν Κιλικια,——words which so far from allowing any such assertion as Jerome makes, even imply that Paul, with Tristram Shandy-like particularity, would specify that he was “begotten in Cilicia.” Jerome’s ridiculous blunder, Witsius, after exposing its inconsistency with Jewish history, indignantly condemns, as “a most shameful falsehood,” ([a]putidissima fabula,]) which is as hard a name as has been applied to anything in this book.
But if this blunder is so shameful in Jerome, what shall be said of the learned Fabricius, who (Bibliotheca Graeca, IV. p. 795,) copies this story from Jerome as authentic history, without a note of comment, and without being aware that it most positively contradicts the direct assertion of Paul? And this blunder too is passed over by all the great critical commentators of Fabricius, in Harles’s great edition. Keil, Kuinoel, Harles, Gurlitt, and others equally great, who revised all this, are involved in the discredit of the blunder. “Non omnes omnia.”
HIS GRECIAN LEARNING.