In antiquity as today, people from this area were sometimes viewed with suspicion because of their religious beliefs and practices. Turkey was a key center for the ecstatic worship of the Cybele (the Great Earth Mother) and Dionysus cults. Cultured Romans, like Cicero, mocked this religious "enthusiasm" and worried about its apparent irrationality. On top of this, the prominent role of women in the northern portion of Turkey (called "Galatia" at that time) troubled the more traditional and city-bred Romans who held that women should be in charge of domestic affairs while men should be the ones to engage in the public roles. Still, this did not prevent the women in Turkey being known as doctors, or leaders of religious and political organizations.

In the first century of our era, Turkey became a cradle of early Christianity, where Paul of Tarsus spent most of his missionary career. Tradition has it that he was unhorsed and blinded on his way to the Syrian city of Damascus. After his sight miraculously returned, he traveled on to Antioch, on the Syrian-Turkish border, and there he first learned the Christian faith. It was the church in Antioch who first commissioned him as a missionary teacher, i.e., an apostle. In the 40's and 50's of our era, Paul went on to found many churches in Turkey (then known as Asia Minor), and one of his two most influential letters was written to the churches in Galatia. (The other went to Rome.) Given the cultural background of the Galatian people and the inscriptional evidence attesting to the high visibility of their women, it is not surprising that it is precisely in his letter here that Paul proclaims "there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). We tend to view Paul as always the teacher, but I wonder if perhaps in this case it was rather the Galatians who taught Paul this egalitarian ideal.

One feature of early Christianity that has fascinated me for quite some time is that it is precisely in this region that we find the endurance of women leaders in the churches. Paul seems to have known women leaders in nearly all the churches to which he wrote (Thessalonika is the exception), but this leadership of women began to wane by the middle of the second century. Letters such as those to Timothy and Titus, probably written around AD 125 from Ephesus on the Turkish coast, marginalize women leaders and promote men as the models for church leadership. Yet, not long after this, we hear Christians from the Roman cities along the coast criticizing Christians from further inland because they follow the prophetic leadership of three individuals, two of whom are women.

This version of Christianity called itself the New Prophecy, although in many ways it seems not that new to Galatia. It followed local religious tradition in both the ecstatic form of worship and also the emphasis on prophetic revelations. And their strict rules concerning diet and fasting were marvels to many early Christian teachers. Perhaps this is one reason why monasticism as we know it arose in the rocky hills of Cappadocia, in the Turkish interior just south of here. Nor is it surprising that the "whirling Dervishes" still survive in the Sufi sect of Islam which remains vital in this region.

Paul went on from Galatia to Ephesus and beyond, but it was in Turkey that Paul's legacy was most powerful. It was in Ephesus that his letters were first gathered together to be disseminated to other churches. In Ephesus also arose John the Seer, author of the New Testament Book of Revelation, to deliver his visionary prophecy-- a prophet in a long line of prophets from Turkey. Hence, two of the most compelling-- and sometime troublesome-- authors of the New Testament are linked to this country. They are the ones who keep bringing me back to study Turkey.

The special version of "the Writings of St. Paul" course (RL 408) I will offer this summer will follow in the footsteps of this first "troublemaker," through the ancient lands of Greece and Turkey. Scholars from across the U.S. and even from other countries will be along to share their knowledge of Paul's life and writings. We will visit the very cities where Paul lived and taught. The study of early Christianity can come alive for us in the forum at Ephesus, where St. Paul taught his new message about Jesus- and angered the silversmiths because no one would buy their souvenir statues of Artemis (Acts 19:23-41)! Visiting Pergamum, the site of the first "holistic medicine" facility, can provide us with a new understanding of why it was in Turkey that Jesus became known as the Great Physician.

When reading the New Testament or hearing it read in church, it is easy to forget that its world was inhabited by real people. For a vivid reminder, join this course and take a walk through history into St. Paul's own footsteps-- find out what's great about Turkey.