3rd Missionary Trip - Lorin

es. 220 In a somewhat similar situation was
Samos just off the mainland. 221 Next came
the intended destination of Miletus. 222 Prosperous
and influential this city was a significant
part of the Ionian Greek culture
of this region on the western coast all the
way from Troas south past Mellitus. 223 The
Greek speaking settlements of the western
coast of the province of Asia had developed
their own, distinct version of Greek culture.
The Ionian Greek that they spoke was very
distinct from what one would have heard in
Athens with its Attic dialect, or especially
anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean
where Koine Greek was the language. 224
The developing Christian communities in
this region were especially challenged by
centuries old Greek culture and traditions
that shaped the thinking and the speaking
of the people. This was not the raw frontier
for Christian evangelization. 225
The rationale given for sailing
220 “ἄντικρυς occurs here only in the NT. For the distinction between ἄντικρυς and ἀντικρύ see Rutherford (Phrynichus 500f.).
Luke probably means that they sailed between the island of Chios and the mainland (‘right through’). The town Chios was situated on
the east coast of the island, and it may be the town rather than the island that is in mind. The island was prosperous (though the words of
Hermocrates in Thucydides 8:45:4, οἱ μὲν Χῖοι … πλουσιώτατοι ὄντες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, were not an unbiased economic estimate), and the
town had been made a civitas libera by Sulla (86 BC).” [C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles,
International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004), 958.]
221 “Samos, another of the Ionian islands, separated from the mainland by a channel only just over a mile broad. The main harbour
lay on the south east coast. Augustus was there in the winter of 31/30 BC (Suetonius, Augustus 17) and again in 21/20 BC, when
he declared Samos a civitas libera (Dio Cassius, 54:9:7), a privilege withdrawn by Vespasian (Suetonius, Vespasian 8).” [C. K. Barrett,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004),
958.]
222 “Miletus was an ancient, prosperous, and influential city; Ioniae caput … super XC urbium per cuncta maria genetrix (Pliny,
Natural History 5:112). Here Paul halted; see below. It may not be a matter of coincidence that there is evidence of a Jewish element in
the population (see Trebilco, 12, 56. It is here that the well-known theatre inscription occurs: τόπος Εἰουδέων τῶν καὶ θεοσεβίον (sic)
(CIJ 2:748; Deissmann, LAE 446f.; discussed by Trebilco, 159–62). See NS 3:24, 25, 167, 168; G. Kleiner, Das römische Milet (Sitzungsberichte
der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, Frankfurt/Main, 8:5; 1970).” [C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004), 958-59.]
223 “A journey the reverse of Paul’s was made by Herod: Josephus, Ant. 16:16–20.” [C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004), 959.]
224 “The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian
invasions, around the 11th Century BC.
“By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th-century BC, the central west coast of Asia Minor, along with the islands of Chios
and Samos, formed the heartland of Ionia proper. The Ionic dialect was also spoken on islands across the central Aegean and on the
large island of Euboea north of Athens. The dialect was soon spread by Ionian colonization to areas in the northern Aegean, the Black
Sea, and the western Mediterranean.
“The Ionic dialect is generally divided into two major time periods, Old Ionic (or Old Ionian) and New Ionic (or New Ionian).
The transition between the two is not clearly defined, but 600 BC is a good approximation.
“The works of Homer (the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns) and of Hesiod were written in a literary dialect called
Homeric Greek or Epic Greek, which largely comprises Old Ionic, with some borrowings from the neighboring Aeolic dialect to the
north. The poet Archilochus wrote in late Old Ionic.
“The most famous New Ionic authors are Anacreon, Theognis, Herodotus, Hippocrates, and, in Roman times, Aretaeus, Arrian,
and Lucian.”
[“Ionic Greek,” wikipedia.org]
225One very important older but still vitally relevant study of the ancient cultural diversity of Asia Minor is William Mitchell
Ramsay, The Intermixture of Races in Asia Minor: Some of Its Causes and Effects, (London: Humphrey Milford; Oxford University
Press, 1916).
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