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Bible Dictionaries
Pontus
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or PONTUS . In the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, this name, meaning ‘sea’ in Greek, was used by Greeks to indicate vaguely country bordering on or near the Black Sea. From its importance for the corn supply of Greece, the Black Sea and the land around it came to be known as ‘the sea’ par excellence . As time went on the term gradually became confined to the country to the south of the Black Sea. It was not till about b.c. 302 that a kingdom was here formed. In that year, consequent upon the troubles due to the early death of Alexander the Great, a certain Mithradates was able to carve out for himself a kingdom beyond the river Halys in N.E. Asia Minor, and about b.c. 281 he assumed the title of king. It is not possible to define the exact extent of the territory ruled by this king and his descendants, but it is certain that it included part of the country previously called Cappadocia, some of the mountain tribes near the Black Sea coasts, and part of Pophiagonia; and also certain that its extent varied from time to time. The Mithradatic dynasty lasted till b.c. 63. In the preceding year the kingdom ceased to exist, and part of it was incorporated in the Roman Empire under the name Pontus, and this district henceforth constituted one-half of the combined province Bithynia-Pontus, which was put under one governor. The remaining portions of the old kingdom were distributed in other ways. The civil wars helped Pharnaces, a son of the last Mithradates, to acquire the whole of his father’s kingdom, but his brief reign ended in defeat by Julius Cæsar (b.c. 47). The narrowed kingdom of Pontus was re-constituted by Mark Antony in b.c. 39, and given in b.c. 36 to Polemon, who founded a dynasty, which ruled over this kingdom till a.d. 63. The daughter of this Polemon, Queen Tryphæna, is mentioned in the apocryphal book, The Acts of Paul and Thecla , as having been present at a great Imperial festival at Pisidian Antioch in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, whose blood-relation she was. This statement is no doubt founded on fact. These Acts relate that she protected the Christian maiden Thecla, and was converted, through her instrumentality, to Christianity. As tradition connects Bartholomew also with the Polemonian dynasty, it is probable that there were some Christians among them. In a.d. 63 the kingdom of Pontus had been brought to a sufficiently high pitch of civilization to be admitted into the Roman Empire; the western part was made a region of the province Galatia, and the eastern was added to Cappadocia. The dispossessed Polemon was given a Cilician kingdom, and it was as king of part of Cilicia that be (later than a.d. 63) married Berenice.
In the 1st cent. a.d., therefore, the name Pontus had various significations, and a strict nomenclature was available for their distinction. The province was Pontus, Polemon’s kingdom was Pontus Polemoniacus (incorporated into province Galatia a.d. 63), the part of Mithradates’ old kingdom incorporated in the province Galatia (b.c. 3 2) was Pontus Galaticus, and the regions that lay E. of Pontus Polemoniacus, between the Black Sea and Armenia, were known as Pontus Cappadocicus. (Into the difficult question of the institution of this fourth district we cannot enter here.) From about a.d. 78 to 106 P. Galaticus and P. Polemoniacus were included in the combined provinces Galatia and Cappadocia, and after a.d. 106 they constituted permanent parts of the province Cappadocia. In 1 Peter 1:1 Peterontus means clearly the Roman province. There is little doubt that the adjective Pontikos , applied to Aquila in Acts 18:2 , means that, though a Jew, he was a native of the Roman province, and it is interesting in connexion with this to mention that an inscription has recently been found referring to one Aquila at Sinope, one of the principal cities of the Roman province Pontus. The only remaining NT reference to Pontus ( Acts 2:9 ) cannot be so easily explained. It must be left uncertain whether the name Pontus there is used strictly of the province, or more loosely of the kingdom, or of the kingdom and the province together.
Christianity was not brought to Pontus by St. Paul, if we can trust the silence of Acts, and it is best to do so. From 1Peter it is clear that about the year 80, the probable date of the Epistle, there were Christians in that country, and these converts from paganism to Christianity probably came there from the Asian coasts or from Rome. There is a well-known and valuable testimony to the prevalence of Christianity in the province, belonging to the period a.d. 111 113. At that time the younger Pliny was governor of the province Bithynia-Pontus, and addressed inquiries to the Emperor Trajan on the manner in which Christians ought to be treated by the administration. He reports that many men and women of all ages and of every rank in town and country were Christians, and that some had abandoned the faith 20 or 25 years before. After Pliny’s time Pontus continued to be a stronghold of Christianity. From here came the famous Marcion (born about 120 at Sinope), and of this province Aquila , a translator of the OT into Greek, was a native.
A. Souter.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Pontus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/pontus.html. 1909.
