Biblical Nations - Phrygians

Phrygians

Key Scripture: Acts 18:23

Figures: Epaphras, Nympha

This week we're going to take a turn to the north and look at a different part of the Biblical story.  While the Old Testament narrative focused largely on nations to the south or east of the Promised Land, the story that is told in the New Testament reflects a shift in historical trends towards the north and west.  A land once known as Anatolia played a vital role in the spread of Christianity, and later it was called Asia Minor before carrying its modern name of Turkey.  Controlled by the Greeks before eventually becoming part of Rome, it was populated with a number of different ethnic groups.  To continue our study, we now turn our attention to one of the regions within this important place that was home to a people group known as the Phrygians.

The Phrygian people originally came from Europe, and had likely immigrated from the western side of the Black Sea some time during the late 2nd millennium BC.  Their presence was well known to the Greeks who settled along the Aegean, as they appear in the writings of Homer as well as their myths of great Phrygian kings such as Gordias (who tied the famed knot that bore his name) and his son Midas (the traffic figure who had the golden touch).  They were recognized as an ancient society, as some Egyptian writings suggest they predated even the land of the pharaohs.  Biblical historians have supposed the Phrygians descended from Japheth, including Josephus who believed they were the offspring of Togarmah, son of Japheth's first son, Gomer.  Their unified kingdom had crumbled for unknown reasons before the start of the 8th century BC, at which time the area was consolidated under Lydian rule.  Persia was the next conqueror of the region, defeating King Croesus in 546 BC.  The loss of Xerxes at the hands of the Hellenist states in 479 BC freed all of Anatolia of Persian rule for nearly 100 years, and they were led by local princes until Sparta effectively sold them off to Artaxerxes II as a bargaining chip for their own freedom in 386 BC.  It wasn't until just prior to 100 BC that Phrygia was completely brought under Roman jurisdiction. 

The first Biblical mention of the Phrygians is found in Acts 2 during a description of the events during Pentecost.  Jews and other converts hailing from various regions were able to understand the words of the apostles, including those from Phrygia.  Several parts of Asia Minor were known to have a significant Jewish minority, and although there was some level of discord amongst those who kept Mosaic law and those who were deemed as being lax or even removed entirely from their traditional faith.  The religion of the Phrygians focused largely on a fertility cult, which had induced Greek, Roman, and Jewish followers as they settled into the region.  Although the original race of Phrygians had been watered down by waves of immigration, the language persisted for some time due to the adherants to their belief system.  It is somewhat intriguing, therefore, that a language preserved largely by one faith was spoken to at the beginning of the evangelical movement of the Christian church. 

A significant Christian population was soon formed in various parts of Asia Minor, due in large part to the efforts of Paul - a Jewish man from the nearby city of Tarsus.  Embarking on a number of trips to cities stretching from Jerusalem to Rome, he encountered numerous inhabitants of Phrygia and reached out by letter to even more.  Cities such as Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Colossae, and Laodicea were Phrygian locations recorded in the New Testament by Paul and Luke, and had notable impacts on the growth of Christianity.  Laodicea is also mentioned as the last of the seven churches that Jesus addresses through John in the book of Revelation.  The tone He uses suggests they had developed a lukewarm faith reminiscent of the error of the earlier Jews who had not maintained strict adherence to their beliefs.  Over time the Phrygian people were homogenized into the surrounding groups, their language lost, and their religion co-opted by Emperor worship or replaced by other faiths, such as Christianity.  Today the region is part of the nation of Turkey but is not maintained as a unique administrative area.