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CILICIA
Province of the Roman Empire, located in southeastern Asia Minor. Its capital was Tarsus, Paul’s hometown (Acts 21:39; 22:3), hence permitting Paul Roman citizenship (16:37) even though he was a Jew.
Jewish presence in the area probably dated to the time when Antiochus the Great settled 2,000 Jewish families in the Asia Minor regions of Lydia and Phrygia in the second century BC (Josephus’s Antiquities 12.3.4).
In antiquity Cilicia (called Kue in OT times) formed a bridge between the country now known as Turkey and Syria, its neighbor to the southeast. Geographically the country was divided between Cilicia Tracheia, the mountainous region in the western half, and Cilicia Pedias, the lovely plains to the east. Entrance into Turkey (ancient Asia Minor) was possible through the Cilician Gates, a narrow pass in the Taurus Mountains. Cilicia Pedias was early attached to the province of Syria (c. 38 BC) and was known in the NT times as Syria and Cilicia (Gal 1:21). The western part, Cilicia Tracheia, was given by Mark Antony to Cleopatra in 36 BC, but by the time of Paul, it was ruled by the Hellenist king Antiochus IV of Commagene (AD 38–72). In AD 72 the two areas were unified into one Roman province, called Cilicia, by the Roman emperor Vespasian.
Jews from Cilicia participated in the persecution of Stephen (Acts 6:9). After his conversion to Christianity, Paul eventually returned to Tarsus, later accompanying Barnabas to Antioch (Acts 11:25-26). Syria and Cilicia thus became the first major center of non-Jewish Christianity, and from this region Christianity spread to the rest of the gentile population of the Roman Empire.
See also Kue.