cappadocia Summary and Overview

the easternmost and the largest province of Asia Minor. Christianity very early penetrated into this country (1 Pet. 1:1). On the day of Pentecost there were Cappadocians at Jerusalem (Acts 2:9).

(province of good horses), #Ac 2:3; 1Pe 1:1| the largest province in ancient Asia Minor. Cappadocia is an elevated table-land intersected by mountain chains. It seems always to have been deficient in wood, but it was a good grain country, and particularly famous for grazing. Its Roman metropolis was Caesarea. The native Cappadocians seem to have originally belonged to the Syrian stock.

CAPPADO'CIA , the largest and most easterly province of Asia Minor. On the north was Pontus, on the east the Euphrates, beyond which were Armenia and Mesopotamia, on the south Syria and Cilicia, and on the west Galatia. It was high table-land, intersected by ranges of mountains, sparsely wooded, but good for grain or grazing. Cappadocia was conquered by Cyrus, ruled by Alexander the Great, tributary to the Seleucidae, and became a Roman province, a.d. 17. Some of its people were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:9, and afterward Christians of the province were addressed by Peter. 1 Pet 1:1.

The most eastern province of Asia Minor. Jews resident in it were among Peter's hearers at his memorable Pentecostal sermon (Acts 2:9). To them accordingly, among others, he addressed his First Epistle (1 Peter 1:1). Judaism there paved the way for Christianity. Seleucus first introduced Jewish colonists into Asia Minor (Josephus, Ant. 12:3, section 4). Rome, by the civilization and improved roads which it carried with it every where, facilitated the spread first of Judaism, then of Christianity.

The approach to Cappadocia from Israel and Syria was by the pass called "the Cilician gates," leading up through the Taurus range from the low region of Cilicia. Once Cappadocia reached to the Euxine Sea; but Rome made two provinces of the ancient Cappadocia, Pontus on the N. along the sea, and Cappadocia on the S. Tiberius it was who reduced the Cappadocian Archclaus' kingdom to a province (A.D. 17), of which Caesarea was the capital, afterward the birthplace and see of Basil. Its cities, Nyssa, Nazianzus, Samosata, and Tyana, were noted in church history.