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Bible Dictionaries
Pontus
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Πόντος)
To early Greek writers, Pontus vaguely denoted any coastland of the ‘Inhospitable Sea’-Πόντος ἄξενος, afterwards changed into Πόντος εὔξεινος-beyond the Bosporus. To Herodotus (vii. 95) it meant the southern littoral of the Euxine, and to Xenophon (Anab. V. vi. 15) the south-eastern. It had not a definite geographical meaning till the founding of the kingdom of Pontus by Mithridates in the troubled period which followed the death of Alexander the Great.
‘The Macedonians obtained possession of Cappadocia after it had been divided by the Persians into two satrapies, and permitted, partly with and partly without the consent of the people, the satrapies to be altered to two kingdoms, one of which they called Cappadocia proper, … the other they called Pontus, but according to other writers Cappadocia on Pontus’ (ἡ πρὸς τῷ Πόντῳ Καππαδοκία) (Strabo, XII. i. 4). Polybius names the kingdom ‘Cappadocia towards the Euxine’ (Καππαδοκία ἡ περὶ τὸν Εὔξεινον) (v. xliii. 1). In popular usage the single word Pontus displaced the more cumbrous nomenclature.
This kingdom attained its greatest prosperity and power in the reign of Mithridates IV. Eupator (111-63 b.c.), who extended it to Heracleia on the border of Bithynia in the west and to Colchis and Lesser Armenia in the east (Strabo, XII. iii. 1); but his wars with the Romans ended in his overthrow. The western part of his kingdom was joined to Bithynia to form the double province Pontus-Bithynia, which existed for three centuries. The eastern part was broken up into possessions for a number of native dynasts, and one of the larger fragments passed in 36 b.c. from the family of Mithridates to Polemon of Laodicea, the founder of a new dynasty of Pontic kings, which lasted till a.d. 63. Other portions were added one by one to the province of Galatia, forming together Pontus Galaticus, whose chief towns were Amasia and Comana. In a.d. 63 the Romans, thinking that Polemon’s vassal kingdom had become civilized enough to be incorporated in the Empire, added part of it, including the cities of Trapezus and Neo-Caesarea, to the province of Galatia as Pontus Polemonaicus, a name which it retained for centuries. Polemon II. was consoled for his loss by receiving the kingdom of Cilicia Tracheia, and he afterwards married Berenice (q.v._), the sister of Herod Agrippa. Still another fragment of the old kingdom of Pontus was added to the province of Cappadocia, and called Pontus Cappadocicus. From a.d. 78-106 the provinces of Galatia and Cappadocia were united for administrative purposes. When they were separated again by Trajan, Pontus Galaticus and Pontus Polemonaicus were permanently joined to Cappadocia.
Philo (Leg. ad Gaium, 36) testifies that in his time the Jews had penetrated ἄχρι Βιθυνίας καὶ τῶν τοῦ Πόντου μυχῶν. Pontus stands in the list of countries from which Jews and proselytes came to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). As the geographical names in this list have their popular rather than their Imperial meaning, Pontus may either denote the province of Pontus alone, or may include Galatic and Polemonian Pontus; but Polemon’s kingdom was scarcely settled enough to be likely to attract Jewish colonists. ‘The elect who are strangers of the Dispersion in Pontus’ are named as the readers of the First Epistle of St. Peter (1:1), and here the language is strictly Roman, for the three provinces Galatia, Cappadocia, and Asia, together with the dual province Pontus-Bithynia, are meant to sum up the whole of Asia Minor north of the Taurus. The severance in this passage of Pontus from Bithynia, as well as the order in which the provinces are named, requires an explanation, and the best has been suggested by G. H. A. Ewald (Sieben Sendschreiben des neuen Bundes, 1870, p. 2f.). The order indicated is that of an actual Journey, which the bearer of the Epistle-probably Silvanus, the amanuensis (1 Peter 5:12)-is about to undertake. Landing at one of the seaports of Pontus (Sinope or Amisus) he will make a circuit of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Asia, and work his way through Bithynia to another port of the Euxine (cf. F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter, I. 1-II. 17, 1898, p. 17).
The first cities of Pontus to receive Christianity were doubtless those of the seaboard, from which it must have rapidly spread inland. Pliny the Younger was sent to administer Pontus and Bithynia in a.d. 111, and his correspondence with Trajan gives a clear idea of the changes already being wrought by the new religion-in his view a ‘superstitio prava immodica’-not only in the great towns but in remote country places (Ep. x. 97). His reference to renegades who professed to have renounced their Christian faith as much as twenty five years previously indicates that some parts of the province had been evangelized some time before a.d. 87 or 88. The First Epistle of Peter, even if it was not written till a.d. 80, carries the date of the introduction of Christianity into Pontus a good deal further back.
Aquila, the fellow-worker of St. Paul, was a native of Pontus (Acts 18:2). Another Aquila, the translator of the OT into Greek, who lived in the time of Hadrian, belonged to the same province. An inscription to an Aquila of Sinope (Sinub) has recently been found. Sinope was the birthplace of Marcion, whose father is said to have been a bishop.
Literature.-W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, Hist. Geography of Asia Minor, 1890; J. G. C. Anderson, ‘Exploration in Pontus,’ in Studia Pontica, 1903, and F. and E. Cumont, ‘Voyage d’exploration archéol. dans le Pont et la petite Arménie,’ ib., 1906.
James strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Pontus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/pontus.html. 1906-1918.
