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Bible Dictionaries
Smyrna
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Σμύρνα)
Smyrna has been an important city for at least 3000 years. Occupying one of the most beautiful and commanding positions in the eastern aegean coastland, at the head of a deep and sheltered gulf, it has had a very chequered but honourable history, and it is to-day by far the most prosperous city in Asia Minor having a quarter of a million inhabitants. ‘Old Smyrna’-ἡ παλαιὰ Σμύρνα (Strabo, XIV. i. 37)-was colonized by the aeolians, captured from them by the Ionians, and almost destroyed (in the 7th cent. b.c.) by the Lydians. It lay under Mt. Sipylos, 2 or 3 miles N. of ‘New Smyrna,’ which was founded by Lysimachus (circa, about 290 b.c.), and built along the southern shore of the Gulf and up the slopes of Mt. Pagos, the westernmost spur of the Tmolus range.
Smyrna was the emporium for the trade of the fertile Hermus valley, and the terminus of one of the great roads from the interior of Asia Minor. It was noted for its carefully-planned streets-one of them called ‘Golden Street’-and splendid public buildings. Its citizens owed much to their sagacious friendship with Rome. As early as 195 b.c. they dedicated a shrine to Roma, and in all the struggles of the next two centuries Smyrna was invariably on the Roman-that is, the winning-side. She was rewarded for her fidelity by being constituted a civitas libera et immunis, and under Tiberius she was chosen from among twelve keen rivals, of whom Sardis was the most powerful, to have the honour of building a temple to the Emperor (Tacitus, Ann. iv. 55f.).
The message to Smyrna in Rev. (Revelation 2:8-11) is at once the briefest and the most eulogistic of all the Seven Letters. Like the others, it unquestionably contains a number of pointed local allusions. Words which may now seem pale and neutral were deeply significant to the first readers. St. John knew each of his churches almost as a living personality, and no touch is superfluous or irrelevant in his clearly-conceived and carefully-etched portraits. The title which he chooses for the Sender of the letters is in every instance apposite. The message to Smyrna comes from ‘the First and the Last’ (Revelation 2:8). Smyrna was the most ambitious of all the cities of Asia, and her municipal self-consciousness was inordinately developed. She could brook no rivals; she coveted all the honours and prizes; she appropriated the title πρώτη Ἀσίας. Her claim to be first in beauty was scarcely disputed, Strabo (XIV. i. 37) calling her καλλίστη πασῶν. She counted the greatest of poets one of her sons-though many other cities questioned the claim-and built a Homereion in his honour. She convinced the Roman Senate that she ‘first reared a temple to the city of Rome’ (Tacitus, Ann. iv. 56), and she wished to be first, as a νεωκόρος or temple-warden, to pay divine honours to the Emperor. She was like the Homeric hero whom nothing would Satisfy but αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν, καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων (Il. vi. 208). To this ‘First City’ comes a letter from the First and the Last. Let her but once recognize His primacy, and she is likely to revise all her civic ideals, to renounce all her self-centred ambitions. Her first and most illustrious citizens will be her martyrs. Her standard of comparison will no longer be Ephesus or Sardis or Pergamos or even Rome, but the City of God, in which the last is first.
The Smyrniote Church, for which St. John has not a single word of blame, is thus led to welcome Christian paradoxes. She is in poverty, but she is rich (v. 9); she is reviled by a powerful synagogue of Jews, but they are only ‘a synagogue of Satan’ (v. 9). Just because she is so faithful, she is chosen for the most difficult tasks; because she is so brave, she is exposed to the greatest dangers. She has to face suffering, imprisonment, trial; but it is only a ten days’ tribulation. Death by violence comes within her horizon, but it is transfigured: the martyr is not to be pitied but emulated, for fidelity unto death wins the crown which is life (v. 10). When man has done his worst to the body, there is no more that he can do; no second death shall hurt the spirit that overcomes (v. 11).
‘The crown of life’ (ὁ στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς) may have been suggested by one of the most familiar elements in the life of Smyrna, the athletic contests and the presentation of the garlands of victory; or it may be an allusion to the fact that the lovely city itself, on its mountain slope, was commonly likened to a garland, as some of its coins prove (B. V. Head, Historia Nummorum, 1887, p. 509). It was not for intellectual errors that the name of ‘Jews’ was denied to the synagogue of Smyrna, while that of ‘synagogue of Satan’ was attached to it (Revelation 2:9). An honest scepticism regarding the claims of the Nazarene to be the Messiah could have been understood and forgiven. It was because the Jews of Smyrna were morally wrong-hating instead of loving-that they forfeited their traditional titles and privileges (cf. Romans 2:28-29). That they were often fanatically hostile to the Christians is shown by the narrative of the martyrdom of Polycarp. When he was sentenced to death ‘the whole multitude both of the heathen and Jews, who dwelt in Smyrna, cried out with uncontrollable fury and in a loud voice,’ and the sentence ‘was carried into effect with greater speed than it was spoken, the multitudes immediately gathering together wood and faggots out of the shops and baths, the Jews especially, according to custom, eagerly assisting them in it’ (προθύμως, ὡς ἤθος αὐτοῖς). It was ‘at the suggestion and urgent persuasion of the Jews’ that the body of the martyr was refused to the Christians, ‘lest, forsaking Him that was crucified, they should begin to worship this one’ (Mart. Polyc. xii. f., xvii.). Modern Smyrna, being predominantly Greek Christian, is called by the Turks Giaour Ismir.
Literature.-C. Wilson, in Murray’s Handbook to Asia Minor, 1895. p. 70 f.; W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 1904, p. 251 f.
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Smyrna'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/smyrna.html. 1906-1918.
