Phrygia

Biblical Text

Phrygia is mentioned three times in Acts.

• Acts 2:10: This passage lists the places of origin of the people gathered in Jerusalem at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. "Phrygia, and Pamphylia" are named together, indicating that some Jews or proselytes to Judaism from this region were present on that occasion.
• Acts 16:6: During the second journey, when the Holy Spirit forbade them to preach the word in Asia, Paul and his companions "had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia."
• Acts 18:23: At the beginning of his third journey, Paul "went over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples."

Although Phrygia is not named there, Colossae, the destination of Colossians, and Laodicea and Hierapolis, mentioned in Colossians 4:13, were also cities of the Phrygian region.

Background

Phrygia took its name from a kingdom founded in antiquity by the Phrygians. The center of this kingdom was Gordium, a place associated with the legendary King Midas. The region later came successively under Lydian, Persian, and Hellenistic rule. In the New Testament period, Phrygia was not a single administrative unit but the name of a geographical region. Rome divided the area between the province of Asia and the province of Galatia. For this reason, ancient sources are inconsistent as to whether cities such as Iconium and Pisidian Antioch belonged to Phrygia.

The worship of Cybele, the "Great Mother" goddess, was widespread in the region. There were also Jewish communities. Josephus reports that the Seleucid king Antiochus III resettled Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia.

Significance in Scripture

Phrygia lay along the route by which the gospel spread from Jerusalem into the interior of Asia Minor. The Pentecost account shows that Jews from this region heard the gospel from the very beginning. The accounts of Paul's missionary journeys show that Paul repeatedly visited and strengthened the disciples in the area. Churches founded through Paul's coworkers, such as Epaphras, were also located in this region; the church at Colossae is one example. Laodicea was one of the seven churches of Asia.

Interpretation and Debate

Scholars differ over what "Phrygia and the region of Galatia" in Acts 16:6 refers to, a question closely tied to the identity of the recipients of Galatians.

• North Galatian hypothesis: This view holds that the phrase refers to two areas: the Phrygian region and the territory of the Galatian people farther north. On this view, Galatians was addressed to churches in the northern area.
• South Galatian hypothesis: This view reads the phrase as denoting a single area, "the Phrygian region of the Roman province of Galatia." On this view, the recipients of Galatians were the churches founded during the first journey, such as those at Iconium and Pisidian Antioch.

Neither view has been conclusively established, and both are supported by a range of scholars and commentators.

In church history, Montanism arose in Phrygia in the second century. Its opponents sometimes called the movement "the Phrygians," after the name of the region. This development, however, postdates the biblical text.