the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Mysia
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Μυσία)
Mysia was an ill-defined country in the N. W. of Asia Minor, having the aegean, the Hellespont, and the Propontis on the W. and N., Bithynia on the N. E., and the equally ill-defined regions of Phrygia and Mysia on the S. E. and S. The absence of landmarks between the land of the Mysians and that of the Phrygians gave rise to the saying, χωρὶς τὰ Μυσῶν καὶ Φρυγῶν ὁρίσματα. ‘The reason is this: strangers who came into the country were soldiers and barbarians; they had no fixed settlement in the country of which they obtained possession, but were, for the most part, wanderers, expelling others from their territory and being expelled themselves’ (Strabo, XII. iv. 4). For the most part a mountainous country, Mysia was not so productive as Lydia and Caria. It was sometimes regarded as including the Troad in the W., sometimes as separated therefrom by the river aesepus. The river Caicus and Mount Temnos were usually taken as the southern limits, and the district of Phrygia Epictetus, which extends a considerable distance eastward-as far as Dorylaeum and Nakoleia-was at one time in the hands of the Mysians. The Romans, who showed little regard for ethnical distinctions, absorbed Mysia in the great province of Asia.
Mysia is referred to in an important but difficult passage of Acts (Acts 16:7-8). St. Paul and Silas, having in the second missionary tour ‘come over against Mysia’ (ἐλθόντες κατὰ τὴν Μυσίαν), were restrained by the Spirit of Jesus from going into Bithynia; whereupon they turned westward, and ‘passing by Mysia (παρελθόντες τὴν Μυσίαν) they came down to Troas’ (Acts 16:7-8). For a discussion of the vexed question as to the apostles’ movements before they came to the borders of Bithynia and over against Mysia see Phrygia and Galatia. Assuming that St. Paul and Silas were travelling from Pisidian Antioch northward through Phrygian Asia, Ramsay observes that they would be ‘over against Mysia’ when they reached such a point that a line drawn across the country at right angles to the general line of their route would touch Mysia (The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 75 n. [Note: . note.] ). This point would be the city of Dorylaeum. From there they turned due westward, and, ‘passing by,’ or neglecting, Mysia-this does not mean passing along its borders, but going straight through it without pausing to do any evangelistic work in it-they came down to the aegean. The other reading, διελθόντες, preferred by Blass despite its weak authority (D and Vulgate), seems in Acts and the Pauline Epistles invariably to designate a missionary tour, which is in this case out of the question, as the apostles have just been forbidden to preach in Asia (Acts 16:6). The distance from Dorylaeum to Troas is about 240 miles. The route would lead through the valley of the Rhyndacus and the town of Apameia, where there is a local tradition of a Pauline visit (Expository Times x. [1898-99] 495).
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Mysia'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/mysia.html. 1906-1918.
