Two important events have caused Tyre and Sidon to be mentioned in the New Testament. Jesus Christ, in the second year of his ministry, “arose and went” from Galilee “into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,” and there wrought a miracle at the earnest request of a “Syro-Phoenician woman."14480 And Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, when at Cæsarea in A.D. 44, received an embassy from “them of Tyre and Sidon,” with whom he was highly offended, and “made an oration” to the ambassadors.14481 In this latter place the continued semi-independence of Tyre and Sidon seems to be implied. Agrippa is threatening them with war, while they “desire peace.” “Their country” is spoken of as if it were distinct from all other countries. We cannot suppose that the Judæan prince would have ventured to take up this attitude if the Phoenician cities had been fully incorporated into the Roman State, since in that case quarrelling with them would have been quarrelling with Rome, a step on which even Agrippa, with all his pride and all his rashness, would scarcely have ventured. It is probable, therefore, that either Tiberius or Claudius had revoked the decree of Augustus, and re-invested the Phoenician cities with the privilege whereof the first of the emperors had deprived them.
Not long after this, about A.D. 57, we have evidence that the great religious and social movement of the age had swept the Phoenician cities within its vortex, and that, in some of them at any rate, Christian communities had been formed, which were not ashamed openly to profess the new religion. The Gospel was preached in Phoenicia14482 as early as A.D. 41. Sixteen years later, when St. Paul, on his return from his third missionary journey, landed at Tyre, and proceeded thence to Ptolemaïs, he found at both places “churches,” or congregations of Christians, who received him kindly, ministered to his wants, prayed with him, and showed a warm interest in his welfare.14483 These communities afterwards expanded. By the end of the second century after Christ Tyre was the seat of a bishopric, which held an important place among the Syrian Sees. Several Tyrian bishops of the second, third, and fourth centuries are known to us, as Cassius (ab. A.D. 198), Marinus (A.D. 253), Methodius (A.D. 267-305), Tyrannion (A.D. 310), and Paulinus (A.D. 328). Early in the fourth century (B.C. 335) Tyre was the seat of a synod or council, called to consider charges made against the great Athanasius,14484 who was taxed with cruelty, impiety, and the use of magical arts. As the bishops who assembled belonged chiefly to the party of Arius, the judgment of the council condemned Athanasius, and deprived him of his see. On appeal the decision was reversed; Athanasius was reinstated,14485 and advanced; the cause with which he had identified himself triumphed; and the Synod of Tyre being pronounced unorthodox, the Tyrian church, like that of Antioch, sank in the estimation of the Church at large.
Tyre also made herself obnoxious to the Christian world in another way. In the middle of the third century she produced the celebrated philosopher, Porphyry,14486 who, of all the literary opponents of Christianity, was the most vigorous and the most successful. Porphyry appears to have been a Phoenician by descent. His original name was Malchus—i.e. Melek or Malik, “king.” To disguise his Asiatic origin, and ingratiate himself with the literary class of the day, who were chiefly Greeks or Grecised Romans, he took the Hellenic and far more sonorous appellation of Porphyrius, which he regarded as a sort of synonym, since purple was the royal colour. He early gave himself to the study of philosophy, and was indefatigable in his efforts to acquire knowledge and learning of every kind. In Asia, probably at Tyre itself, he attended the lectures of Origen; at Athens he studied under Apollonius and Longinus; in Rome, whereto he ultimately gravitated, he attached himself to the Neo-Platonic school of Plotinus. His literary labours, which were enormous, had for their general object the establishment of that eclectic system which Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Jamblichus, and others had elaborated, and were endeavouring to impose upon the world as constituting at once true religion and true philosophy. He was of a constructive rather than a destructive turn of mind. Still, he thought it of great importance, and a necessity of the times, that he should write a book against the Christians, whose opinions were, he knew, making such progress as raised the suspicion that they would prevail over all others, and in a short time become universal. This polemical treatise ran to fifteen books, and “exhibited considerable acquaintance with both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures."14487 It is now lost, but its general character is well known from the works of Eusebius, Jerome, and others. The style was caustic and trenchant. An endeavour was made to show that both the historical scriptures of the Old Testament and the Gospels and Acts in the New were full of discrepancies and contradictions. The history and antiquities of the Jews, as put forth in the Bible, were examined, and declared to be unworthy of credit. A special attack was made on the genuineness and authenticity of the book of Daniel, which was pronounced to be the work of a contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes, who succeeded in palming off upon his countrymen his own crude production as the work of the venerated sage and prophet. Prevalent modes of interpreting scripture were passed under review, and the allegorical exegesis of Origen was handled with especial severity. The work is said to have produced a vast effect, especially among the upper classes, whose conversion to Christianity it tended greatly to check and hinder. Answers to the book, or to particular portions of it, were published by Eusebius of Cæsarea, by Apollinaris, and by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre; but these writers had neither the learning nor the genius of their opponent, and did little to counteract the influence of his work on the upper grades of society.14488
The literary importance of the Phoenician cities under the Romans is altogether remarkable. Under Augustus and Tiberius—especially from about B.C. 40 to A.D. 20—Sidon was the seat of a philosophical school, in which the works of Aristotle were studied and explained,14489 perhaps to some extent criticised.14490 Strabo attended this school for a time in conjunction with two other students, named Boëthus and Diodotus. Tyre had even previously produced the philosophers, Antipater, who was intimate with the younger Cato, and Apollonius, who wrote a work about Zeno, and formed a descriptive catalogue of the authors who had composed books on the subject of the philosophy of the Stoics.14491 Strabo goes so far as to say that philosophy in all its various aspects might in his day be better studied at Tyre and Sidon than anywhere else.14492 A little later we find Byblus producing the semi-religious historian, Philo, who professed to reveal to the Greeks the secrets of the ancient Phoenician mythology, and who, whatever we may think of his judgment, was certainly a man of considerable learning. He was followed by his pupil, Hermippus, who was contemporary with Trajan and Hadrian, and obtained some reputation as a critic and grammarian.14493 About the same time flourished Marinus, the writer on geography, who was a Tyrian by birth, and “the first author who substituted maps, mathematically constructed according to latitude and longitude, for the itinerary charts” of his predecessors.14494 Ptolemy of Pelusium based his great work entirely upon that of Marinus, who is believed to have utilised the geographical and hydrographical accumulations of the old Phoenician navigators, besides availing himself of the observations of Hipparchus, and of the accounts given of their travels by various Greek and Roman authors. Contemporary with Marinus was Paulus, a native of Tyre, who was noted as a rhetorician, and deputed by his city to