사도 바울의 선교여정 연구 : 유대인 디아스포라(Diaspora)와 동 지중해의 해상교통을 중심으로

Abstract

In the 1st century C.E., St. Paul of Tarsus had covered far－reaching areas of Syria－Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome through his various phases of missionary travels along the eastern Mediterranean. It seems that his missions would not have been achievable unless the interlocking network of the Jewish diaspora communities developed at the major urban centers in the region. The origin of the Jewish diaspora can be traced from the mass deportation policy adopted by Neo－Assyrian authorities beginning in the seventh century B.C.E. when many Jews were dispersed throughout lands of Mesopotamia and Egypt. St. Paul used to visit Jewish diaspora synagogues not only for preaching his Messianic message to the congregation but also for making his personal board and lodgings. As a Roman citizenship holder, St. Paul could travel many provinces of the empire without difficulties but Jewish resistances and physical dangers in the roads. Thus, he preferred seagoing vessels for a long distance voyage along the maritime trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean. The eastern Mediterranean was the great highway to the Greco－Roman world sustained by trade conducted in sailing vessels. By the 1st century C.E., the provinces of the Roman Empire were trading huge volumes of commodities to one another by sea routes. Fundamental environment features, such as winds, currents and geography, determined the outcome of international affairs in the region. The massive flow of water from the two chief access channels, the Straight of Gibraltar in the west and the Bosporus passages in the north－east, strongly affects the anticlockwise direction of currents in the Mediterranean, and with that ancient navigation. Together with the winds and currents, Mediterranean coastal topography helped to shape the patterns of ancient navigation. Using predictable sea－lanes Roman merchants and sailors worked to forge maritime connections that criss－crossed the eastern Mediterranean linking disparate peoples and cultures to available resources. The traditional ‘Pax Hellenica’ along the eastern Mediterranean achieved after Macedonian military expeditions upon Persian empire was inherited to the Romans as in fact of ‘Pax Romana’ with more integrated systems of provincial administration and commercial exchanges in the 1st century C.E. In this regard, we cannot deny the importance of maritime traffic networks for achieving the future ‘Pax Christiana’ which finally realized by Constantine the Great in 330 C.E., because, St. Paul had already spreaded its seeds along the very same sea routes in the region.