The Expansion of Christianity in Lycaonian Cities and Villages

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CHAPTER 4 The Expansion of Christianity in Lycaonian Cities and Villages

4.1 Introduction

The following survey of Christian inscriptions from Lycaonia and the adjacent region around Isaura and the lake region of eastern Pisidia forms the backbone of this study on the rise of early Christianity in Lycaonia. In each subsection of this chapter evidence attesting the presence of Christians in the cities and villages of Lycaonia and adjacent areas is discussed and indicated on the accom- panying maps.1 In the selection of the material the authors decided to quote the full text of inscriptions that cannot with certainty be identified as Christian only by exception. Some of these inscriptions might well be Christian too. The documentation of “The Expansion of the Christian Religion” into Pisidia, Lycaonia and Isauria by Harnack in his Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums includes only a few inscriptions and does not go beyond to AD 325.2 We expand his brief geographically orientated list of locations in which Christianity set foot into a full presentation of the available evidence. This survey shows how habitable space in Lycaonia and adjacent areas gradu- ally became Christianised. By the 5th century the church gained control over a vast area through the mechanism of bishops ruling the cities and their ter- ritories. The survey is organised around the major cities and their regions, starting with a brief description of the location and overviews of the ancient testimonies to Christianity referring to the city or its territory. Apart from the Lycaonian locations of Paul’s mission mentioned (Iconium, Lystra and Derbe) or implied (Laodicea Combusta) in the Acts of the Apostles, which “cities” or villages should be included under “Lycaonian and adjacent areas”?3 For Strabo the easternmost town of Lycaonia was Coropassus, a fortified outpost (φρούριον). In the south he reckons the two Isauras, Isaura Vetus and the fortified Isaura Nova as still belonging to Lycaonia and places the two holdings of the tyrant Antipater, Derbe and Laranda, next to the Isaurian part of Lycaonia.4

1 Cf. also the routes on the maps in RRMAM 3/9. 2 Cf. Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung, 2.764–776 (section III of chap. 3 in bk. 4). 3 Cf. also the overview in map 1 above. 4 Cf. Strabo 12.6.2–3.

That these towns mentioned could all be treated under “Lycaonia and adjacent areas” is confirmed by the fifth book of Ptolemaeus’s Geographica: Part of Lycaonia were Petenissus, Gdanmaa, Savatra, Ardistama, Kinna, Congussus, Tetradion (Tyriaeum), Laodicea Combusta, Vasada, Perta; in his list of the province of Lycaonia he mentions Adopissus (perhaps Coropassus), Kana, Iconium, Parlais, Korna, Chusbia (otherwise unknown) and Barata, and in that of the Antiochians Derbe, Laranda, Olbasa and Mousbanda.5 According to the 6th-century evidence of the Byzantine geographer Hierocles, Lycaonian cities included Iconium, Mistea, Amblada, Umanada, Isaura Nova, Posala, Ilistra, Laranda, Derbe, Hyde, Kana, Savatra, Barata, Perta, and Gdanmaa.6 Ladislav Zgusta refrains from solving the problem whether his eastern Phrygia (Laodicea Combusta and the area north of it) belongs to Phrygia or to Lycaonia. He places Philomelium and the Beyşehir valley in the Pisidian- Lycaonian border area.7 We have decided to include these two areas and “eastern Phrygia” under “Lycaonia and adjacent areas”. To turn to the modern collections: For the editors of the volume on Galatia and Lycaonia in Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB 4) the border between Galatia and Lycaonia is undefined, but Gdanmaa and Claneus belonged to Lycaonia. In the north-west there is no clear geographical divide between Lycaonia and Phrygia, but Tyriaeum and Philomelium can be taken to Lycaonia. Clearer was the divide between Lycaonia and Cappadocia. It ran east of Coropassus and the Karacadağ until the Akgöl. Laranda was the southernmost city of Lycaonia in the east, in the south-west it was Isaura Vetus. In the west, Lycaonia includes Suğla Gölü up to the mountains west of it, including the cities of Vasada, Amblada and Mistea at the southern tip of Beyşehir Gölü. The central cities of Lycaonia were Iconium and Laodicea.8 The editors of the latest volume of the Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (MAMA xi) discussed Christian monuments from the following locations under “Lycaonia”: Ambar, Axylon, Comitanassus, Hoydus (Akıncılar), Kana, Karaağaç, Kavuklar, Kesmez, Kinna, Iconium, Laodicea, Oğuzeli, Perta, Savatra, Zengicek (Koçyaka) and Maydos close to Zıvarık (Altınekin).9 The cities and villages regarded by Strabo, Ptolemaeus, Hierocles and the modern editors of TIB 4 and MAMA xi as part of Lycaonia are surveyed in this chapter. Like Hierocles and the editors of TIB 4, we also included the adjacent areas of upper Isauria, the cities of the lower Beyşehir valley and those on the

5 Cf. Ptol. Geog. 5.4, 10, 16. 6 Cf. Behrwald, “Lycaonia”, 778. 7 Cf. Zgusta, Personennamensippen, 15–17. 8 Cf. Belke, TIB 4.40. 9 Cf. http://mama.csad.ox.ac.uk/monuments/browse-by-location.html (29 Aug. 2016).