Cyprus | Paphos | St. Paul’s Pillar

After an enlightening few days at We Crociferi in Venice I wandered on to Athens, Crete,  and Rhodes, before finally washing up in Larnaca, Cyprus.
 Cyprus (click on iamges for enlargements)
 
Statue of my man Xeno in Larnaca
After spending a day Getting Back In Touch With My Inner Stoic—as you probably know, Larnaca (then Kition) was the birthplace of the Greek philosopher Zeno (c.352 BC–c.255 BC), founder of Stoicism—I moved on to Paphos, at the western end of Cyprus Island. According to legend Aphrodite was born just up the coast from Paphos and I was eager to see her birthplace, but first I wandered by the church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa to see St. Paul’s Pillar.
Alleged route of Paul and Barnabas through Cyprus. This assumes they used roads built by the Romans to get from Salamis to Paphos. Their itinerary is not detailed in the Bible. 
Paul—he of Road To Damascus fame—and his sidekick Barnabas arrived on Cyprus in  45 or 46 AD, landing at Salamis, Barnabas’s birthplace. According to legend, they then proceeded to Kition, current-day Larnaca, where They Supposedly Met With Lazarus, who had washed up in Larnaca after Jesus of Nazareth, according to the Bible, had raised him from the dead. From Kition they moved along the coast to Paphos, where Paul was supposedly tied to a pillar and whipped for trying to preach Christianity to the locals. You will recall from your Bible studies that he mentions being whipped in Corinthians 2 11:24: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one,” but he does not say where. The pillar that Paul was tied to when he was whipped in Paphos—at least according to legend—still stands in front of the church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa.
 
 St. Paul’s Pillar (click on photos for enlargements)
 The Church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa, dating to about the fifteen century
 The church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa was built of the site of a much larger fourth century basilica. The columns of the old basilica can be seen here. This church was destroyed or heavily damaged by Arabs who invaded Cyprus in the eighth century. The graffiti that they carved on some of the columns can still be seen. 

Paul has of course gotten a lot of Bad Press lately:
“So because the Apostle Paul was a homophobic sexually insecure douchebag and authored the majority of the New Testament people are bound by his interpretation of bigoted hatred in order to fulfill the edict to live “‘good christian lives’”.
Aother Modern Commentator  considers him an insufferably misogynistic blowhard and gasbag who perverted the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. However, there is also the school of thought that maintains he was a secret Gnostic and that the books in the Bible which have given him such a bad name (especially Timothy II) are actually forgeries. For more on this tantalizing theory see Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. For a debate of these various issues see Paul Behaving Badly: Was the Apostle a Racist, Chauvinist Jerk? If you want a novelistic treatment of Paphos at the time of Paul’s visit to the city see The Rose of Venus. The book is narrated by a follower of Aphrodite. Paul makes an appearance in the book and tries to convert the narrator to Christianity, but he, the narrator, is not convinced and remains true to the cult of Aphrodite to the end of his life.  Read the book to find out why.

Popular posts from this blog

Turkey | Nusaybin | Church of St. Jacob | School of Nisibis

Image
The largely Kurdish city of Nusaybin is located twenty-four miles south of Midyat , on the southern edge of the mountainous plateau known as  Tur Abdin , which is Syriac for “The Mountain of the Servants of God”. It is right on the Turkish-Syrian border. Just across the border is the Syrian city of Qamishli.  The city of Nusaybin in Turkey, top, and the Syrian city of Qamishli, bottom (the border is shown in yellow). The two cities are separated by a No-Man’s Land (click on photos for enlargements).  The No-Man’s Land separating Nusaybin and Qamishli We stopped for tea on a square facing the main border crossing between the two cities. According to locals this square would usually be jammed with day-traders coming over from Qamishli to buy and sell goods. The crossing is now closed because of the civil war in Syria and the cafes lining the square host only old men nodding over cups of coffee. Reportedly the city of Al Hasakah forty-five miles to the southwest is now at least partiall
Read more

Turkmenistan | Tagtabazar | Yekedeshik Cave Complex | Part 2

Image
The Yekedeshik Cave Complex is located high above the east bank of Murghab River about fourteen miles north of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border. “Yekedeshik” is supposedly an archaic Turkish word meaning “single orifice”. The name refers to the single entrance to entire complex. There are five floors to the complex, although only the top two are now open to the public. The entrance opens into the fourth floor. The fourth and fifth floor contain forty-four rooms, so it is probable that the entire complex has well over 100 rooms. The chambers were carved out of soft sandstone with what were apparently pick-like implements.  The really surprisingly thing about the complex is how little is know about who built it, for what purpose, and when. Almost everything said about the caves is speculation. Legends and tall tales abound of course. One legend maintains that the caves are not of human provenance at all, but were instead created by jinns , which according to Arab and Muslim mythology
Read more

Turkmenistan | Gurganj–Konye Urgench | Temür Qutlugh Minaret

Image
Wandered out to Konye Urgench in northern Turkmenistan . In the thirteenth century the city was known as Gurganj. Then located on the lower Amu Darya (the river has since changed course), Gurganj was the original capital of the Khwarezm Empire and one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Inner Asia. It  may have reached the height of its florescence during the first two decades of the thirteenth century. The well-travelled Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229), who visited the city in 1219, deemed it perhaps the richest and most highly developed city he had ever seen. Thus it was only natural that it had attracted the attention of Chingis Khan. In the summer of 1220 he dispatched his two sons  Ögedei and Chagaadai to the lower Amu Darya with orders to seize Gurganj and other cities in the area, including Khiva and  Gyaur Qala .   His oldest son, Jochi, who was then leading his own campaign on the lower Syr Darya River, was to rendezvous with his brothers on the lowe
Read more