Bithynia

The settlers who were destined to found the greater city applied to the oracle of Delphi to give them advice as to the site of their new home, and Apollo, we are told, bade them build their town over against the city of the blind.

They therefore pitched upon the headland by the Golden Horn, reasoning that the Chalcedonians were truly blind to have neglected the more eligible site on the Thracian shore in order to found a colony on the far less inviting Bithynian side of the strait.

From the first, its situation marked out Byzantium as destined for a great future.

Alike from the military and from the commercial point of view no city could have been better placed.

Within ten years after its sack by the army of Gallienus, we find Byzantium again a populous town, and its inhabitants are specially praised by the historian Trebellius Pollio for the courage with which they repelled a Gothic raid in the reign of Claudius II.

The strong Illyrian emperors, who staved off from the Roman Empire the ruin which appeared about to overwhelm it in the third quarter of the third century, gave Byzantium time and peace to recover its ancient prosperity.

It profited especially from the constant neighborhood of the imperial court after Diocletian fixed his residence at Nicomedia, only sixty miles away, on the Bithynian side of the Propontis.

But the military importance of Byzantium was always interfering with its commercial greatness.

In Acts chapter 16, verse 6 to 9, the Bible says, Now, when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit not to preach the word in Asia.

After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit did not permit them.

And imagine that these are men of God trying to go to a place to preach.

The Bible clearly said the Holy Spirit did not permit them.

Preaching the gospel was good.

Asia needed the gospel.

Bithynia needed the gospel.

Yet the Holy Spirit said no.

The Spirit forbade him.

He decided to go into Bithynia.

The Spirit forbade him.

That means after Jesus had appeared to him and said to him, I have selected you to show light.

You know, we've got to get rid of him.

Uh, he ends up, uh, in the, uh, the court of Bithynia.

The Romans basically say, "Look, we're gonna invade you if you don't hand over Hannibal." A- and he poisons himself.

Um, and, and that's the end of poor old Hannibal.

He offered the centurion a bribe sufficient to induce him to give up his prisoner, and so escaped.

The two ancient historians, whose records contain nearly all the particulars of the early life of Caesar which are now known, give somewhat contradictory accounts of of the adventures which befell him during his subsequent wanderings they relate in general the same incidents but in such different connections that the precise chronological order of the events which occurred cannot now be ascertained at all events caesar finding that he was no longer safe in the vicinity of rome moved gradually to the eastward attended by a few followers until he reached the sea and there he embarked on board a ship to leave his native land altogether After various adventures and wanderings, he found himself at length in Asia Minor, and he made his way at last to the kingdom of Bithynia on the northern shore.

The name of the king of Bithynia was Nicomedes.

Caesar joined himself to Nicomedes' court and entered into his service.

In the meantime, Scylla had ceased to pursue him and ultimately granted him a pardon, but whether before or after this time is not now to be ascertained.

He wants to plant some more churches, but it says he was stopped by the Spirit of God.

from going to Bithynia which was the area to the north stop from going to Asia which was the area to the south and then through a dream God's he feels God got him to go to Macedonia which was an area in front of him but over the ocean and so they had to sail to get there this says to me that we need to be careful to follow God's guidance for everything we do in our lives careful and that we're listening to him.

The general picture was going to plant new churches, but the specifics of the way, God was very clearly guiding Paul and his companions along this journey.

Let's ask God to be guiding us as we do the different aspects of our lives.

PEDICARBO VOS ET IRAMARBO ANTONY PATHISE ET SYNODE FURY CATALUS on the other hand to take the active part was to make use of another for one's pleasure it was making another man one's property it was preserving the manly the commanding character accordingly solon in his laws prohibits slaves from bearing an active part where the passive is borne by a freeman in the few instances in which we happen to hear of a person's taking the passive part there is nothing to favour the above-mentioned hypothesis the beautiful alcibiades who in his youth says canelius nepos after the manner of the greeks was beloved by many was not remarkable either for his weakness or for cowardice at least did not find it so The Clodius, whom Cicero scoffs at for his servile obsequiousness to the appetite of Curio, was one of the most daring and turbulent spirits in all Rome.

Julius Caesar was looked upon as a man of tolerable courage in his day, notwithstanding the complacency showed in his youth to the king of Bithynia, Nicomedes.

aristotle the inquisitive and observing aristotle whose physiological disquingtions are looked upon as some of the best of his works aristotle who if there had been anything in this notion had every opportunity and inducement to notice and confirm it gives no intimation of any such thing on the contrary he sits down very soberly to distribute the male half of the species under two classes one class having a natural propensity he says to bear a passive part in such a business as the other have to take an active part problem section four article twenty seven the form of these propensities he attributes to a peculiarity of organisation analogous to that of women The whole passage is abundantly obscure, and shows in how imperfect a state of anatomical knowledge was his time.

This observation, it must be confessed, is not much more satisfactory than that other of the same philosopher when he speaks of two sorts of men, the one born to be masters, the other to be slaves.