Cilicia

A region on the southern Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor whose chief city, Tarsus, was Paul’s birthplace; under Rome it became a province. After his conversion Paul preached and strengthened congregations throughout Syria and Cilicia, and later sailed along its coast on his way to Rome.

Cilicia was a fertile plain between the Mediterranean and the Taurus Mountains in southern Asia Minor, corresponding to the Çukurova Plain of modern Türkiye (around Adana and Mersin); its principal city, Tarsus, was the birthplace of the apostle Paul. Jews had long settled there, and among the members of the “Synagogue of the Freedmen” in Jerusalem were Jews from Cilicia who disputed with Stephen (Ac 6:9). After his conversion Paul spent years around Tarsus and traveled throughout “the regions of Syria and Cilicia” (Ga 1:21). The letter issued by the apostles and elders after the Jerusalem council was addressed to “the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia” (Ac 15:23), and at the start of his second missionary journey Paul “went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the congregations” (Ac 15:41). When seized in Jerusalem, Paul identified himself as a Jew “of Tarsus in Cilicia” (Ac 21:39; 22:3), and Governor Felix, after reading the letter, learned that he was from Cilicia and took up his case (Ac 23:34). On his voyage to Rome the ship “navigated through the open sea along Cilicia and Pamphylia,” changing ships at Myra in Lycia (Ac 27:5). Politically, Cilicia became a Roman province in the mid-first century B.C.E.; its mountainous eastern sector remained under client kings until it was fully incorporated in 72 C.E.