4. _John to the seven churches which are in Asia._ The word _Asia_ is used in quite different senses by different writers. It is used (1) as referring to the whole eastern continent now known by that name; (2) either Asia or Asia Minor; (3) that part of Asia which Attalus III., king of Pergamos, gave to the Romans, viz. Mysia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Lydia, Caria, Pisidia, and the southern coast――that is, all in the western, south-western, and southern parts of Asia Minor; and (4), in the New Testament, usually the south-western part of Asia Minor, of which Ephesus was the capital. See Notes, Ac. ii. 9. The word _Asia_ is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures, but it occurs often in the books of Maccabees, and in the New Testament. In the New Testament it is not used in the large sense in which it is now, as applied to the whole continent, but in its largest signification it would include only Asia Minor. It is also used, especially by Luke, as denoting the country that was called _Ionia_, or that which embraced the provinces of Caria and Lydia. Of this region Ephesus was the principal city, and it was in this region that the “seven churches” were situated. Whether there were more than seven churches in this region is not intimated by the writer of this book, and on that point we have no certain knowledge. It is evident that these seven were the principal churches, even if there were more, and that there was some reason why they should be particularly addressed. There is mention of some other churches in the neighbourhood of these. Colosse was near to Laodicea; and from Col. iv. 13, it would seem not improbable that there was a church also at Hierapolis. But there may have been nothing in their circumstances that demanded particular instruction or admonition, and they may have been on that account omitted. There is also some reason to suppose {40} that, though there had been other churches in that vicinity besides the seven mentioned by John, they had become extinct at the time when he wrote the book of Revelation. It appears from Tacitus (_Annal._ xiv. 27; comp. also Pliny, _N. H._ v. 29), that in the time of Nero, A.D. 61, the city of Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake, in which earthquake, according to Eusebius, the adjacent cities of Colosse and Hierapolis were involved. Laodicea was, indeed, immediately rebuilt, but there is no evidence of the re-establishment of the church there before the time when John wrote this book. The earliest mention we have of a church there, after the one referred to in the New Testament by Paul (Col. ii. 1; iv. 13, 15, 16), is in the time of Trajan, when Papias was bishop there, sometime between A.D. 98 and 117. It would appear, then, to be not improbable that at the time when the Apocalypse was written, there were in fact but seven churches in the vicinity. Professor Stuart (i. 219) supposes that “seven, and only so many, may have been named, because the sevenfold divisions and groups of various objects