pamphylia Summary and Overview

Paul and his company, loosing from Paphos, sailed north-west and came to Perga, the capital of Pamphylia (Acts 13:13, 14), a province about the middle of the southern sea-board of Asia Minor. It lay between Lycia on the west and Cilicia on the east. There were strangers from Pamphylia at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (2:10).

(of every tribe), one of the coast-regions in the south of Asia Minor, having Cilicia on the east and Lycia on the west. In St. Paul's time it was not only a regular province, but the emperor Claudius had united Lycia with it, and probably also a good part of Pisidia. It was in Pamphylia that St. Paul first entered Asia Minor, after preaching the gospel in Cyprus. He and Barnabas sailed up the river Cestrus to Perga. #Ac 13:13| The two missionaries finally left Pamphylia by its chief seaport Attalia. Many years afterward St. Paul sailed near the coast. #Ac 27:5|

PAMPHYL'IA (region of every tribe), a Roman province in Asia Minor. Acts 27:5. It was bounded on the east by Cilicia, on the north by Pisidia - from which it was separated by the Taurus Mountains - on the west by Lycia, and on the south by the sea. Claudius made Pamphylia an imperial province. including in it the regions of Pisidia and Lycia, which are distinguished from Pamphylia proper. Acts 13:13-14; Gen 14:24; Acts 27:5. Physical Features. - Sweeping around the head of the bay in crescent form and extending to the Taurus Mountains on the north is a plain about 80 miles long and 30 miles broad. This is Pamphylia proper. Three principal rivers intersect this plain, the Catarrhactes, the Cestrus, and the Eurynedon. The Cestrus was navigable for 7 miles to the city of Perga, which appears to have been the capital of the province, and Attalia its chief seaport. Acts 14:25. History. - Pamphylia, according to Herodotus, was a small territory during the Persian war, when it sent only thirty ships, while Cilicia contributed one hundred. The Romans united it to the province of Asia, but later it was detached, and was included in the jurisdiction of M. Tullius Cicero. Its capital, Perga, was the first place in Asia Minor visited by Paul on his first missionary tour, and there Mark left him. Acts 13:13. On his return from Pisidia he preached at Perga, and from Attalia sailed to Antioch. Acts 14:24-26. Strangers from Pamphylia were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. PAN is, in our version, the rendering of six different Hebrew words, of which two seem to have denoted flat plates of metal, such as are still used in the East for baking cakes of meal, while the others seem to have denoted deeper vessels, used for boiling purposes. Lev 2:6; Ex 6:21.

Southern province of Asia Minor, bounded on the N. by Pisidia, from which it was separated by the Taurus range, W. by Lycia, E. by Cilicia, S. by the Levant. In Paul's time it with Lycia formed a province under the emperor Claudius. His "peril of robbers" was in crossing Taurus, the Pisidians being notorious for robbery. He visited Pamphylia at his first missionary tour, sailing from Paphos in Cyprus to Perga in Pamphylia on the river Cestrus, where Mark forsook him (Acts 13:13; Acts 15:38). They stayed only a short time then, but on their return front the interior "they preached the word" (Acts 14:24-25). Then they "went down (sea being lower than land) to Attalia," the chief seaport of Pamphylia. The minute accuracy of the geographical order, confirming genuineness, is observable, when, in coasting westward, he is said to "sail over the sea of Cilicia, and Pamphylia." Also Acts 13:13-14, "from Perga to Antioch in Pisidia," and Acts 14:24, "after Pisidia ... to Pamphylia," in returning to the coast from inland.