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The Visual Atlas
Places, art and manuscripts across time. First era: the apostolic and early church, from Pentecost to the early fourth century.
Damascus
The road where Saul was stopped and the city he escaped in a basket. Josephus and Eusebius each add one more scene, and neither is about a church.
- 33.511612
- 36.309102
The real question: why does Damascus matter to the story when so little is known about the church there? Everyone in the family knows the street where Grandpa proposed. Nobody remembers who lived on it. Is Damascus a place in the record, or a turning point that happened near a place?
Saul asks for letters to the synagogues of Damascus to bring followers of the Way back bound, and is stopped by a light near the city (Acts 9:1-9). A disciple named Ananias lays hands on him; Saul preaches in the synagogues; the disciples let him down the wall in a basket at night (Acts 9:10-25). Paul retells the event twice (Acts 22:6-11; 26:12-18). Josephus says that when the war began, the people of Damascus killed the Jews they had shut up in the place of public exercise, ten thousand in one hour, and hid it from their own wives, most of whom were devoted to the Jewish religion (Wars 2.20.2). Eusebius records that in the last persecution, while forged Acts of Pilate were being posted with the emperor's approval, a military commander at Damascus forced women in the market place to sign statements against Christians (Church History 9.5.1-2).
The letters to the synagogues and the light on the road (Acts 9:2-3). Ananias, a disciple at Damascus (Acts 9:10). Saul with the disciples in Damascus, preaching in the synagogues (Acts 9:19-20). The escape by night over the wall (Acts 9:25). Paul's retellings (Acts 22:6; 26:12).
Eusebius gives Damascus one scene, from the persecution of his own day: a commander the Romans call Dux seized women in the market place at Damascus and forced written statements from them (Church History 9.5.2). The fathers read here name no bishop of Damascus in this era.
No manuscript in the sources read here is tied to Damascus in this era.
The list of the seventy printed among the dubious and spurious pieces attributed to Hippolytus calls Ananias, who baptized Paul, bishop of Damascus. Acts calls him a disciple and says nothing of an office. That is legend. Josephus's figure of ten thousand killed in an hour is his figure; no other source read here checks it.
Not the conversion debate. Whether Acts 9, 22 and 26 tell the same event in different ways is a question about Acts, not about the place.
- Acts 9:1-25
- Acts 22:6-11
- Acts 26:12-18
- Acts, checked in the King James Version
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, trans. Whiston (Project Gutenberg ed.), 2.20.2
- Eusebius, Church History, trans. McGiffert, NPNF2 vol. 1 (1890), 9.5.2
- Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Seventy Apostles, ANF vol. 5, Appendix to the Works of Hippolytus Containing Dubious and Spurious Pieces
- Pleiades gazetteer, place 678106, Damascus, places.csv
