Perga: The Pamphylian City Where Paul Landed on His First Missionary Journey

Perga (Greek *Perge*) was the foremost city of ancient Pamphylia, the fertile coastal plain of southern Asia Minor between Lycia to the west and Cilicia — the homeland of Tarsus — to the east. It holds a distinct place in the story of St. Paul: it was the first city he entered on the mainland of Asia Minor during the first missionary journey (Scripture: Acts 13:13), the place where John Mark turned back to Jerusalem, and one of the last cities in which he preached before sailing home (Acts 14:25). Today, known as Perge and lying beside the town of Aksu in Antalya Province, Türkiye, it ranks among the best-preserved Roman cities of the eastern Mediterranean.

The Ancient City

Perga stood on the Pamphylian plain roughly twelve kilometres inland from the Mediterranean, beside the river Kestros (the modern Aksu). The river was navigable in antiquity, so that sea-going vessels could come up to a landing near the city — which is why the Acts narrative can describe Paul's party arriving at Perga directly by sea from Cyprus. Pamphylia, a name the Greeks understood as "the land of all tribes," occupied the well-watered strip between the Taurus Mountains and the sea, sharing the southern Anatolian coast with Cilicia further east.

(Tradition) Greek writers ascribed Perga's foundation to heroes returning from the Trojan War, among them the seers Mopsus and Calchas, whose names were later inscribed on statue bases in the city's gate court. (Scholarship) The city's actual character is older and more mixed than the legend suggests: its dialect, cults, and earliest name-forms point to a native Anatolian population that was progressively Hellenized. Inscriptions in the local Pamphylian dialect call the city's great goddess *Vanassa Preiia*, "the Queen of Perga," whom the Greeks identified with Artemis. The Temple of Artemis Pergaia was celebrated throughout the ancient world and appears constantly on the city's coinage, yet its site has never been securely located (Scholarship).

Perga received Alexander the Great peacefully in 334–333 BC and later passed through Seleucid and Attalid spheres before coming under Rome. Its most famous son was the mathematician Apollonius of Perga (c. 240 – c. 190 BC), whose treatise on conic sections gave the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola their names. In Paul's lifetime Pamphylia was administered together with Lycia in a single Roman province organized under Claudius in AD 43 (Scholarship). The Roman peace brought Perga its golden age: most of the monumental city visible today — theatre, stadium, baths, and the great colonnaded street — belongs to the first and second centuries AD. In late antiquity Perga became a Christian bishopric with substantial basilicas, before declining under seventh-century raids and the gradual silting of the Kestros; by the medieval period the site was largely abandoned.

Paul at Perga in the Acts of the Apostles

Perga enters the New Testament at a hinge point of the first missionary journey, which had begun at Antioch in Syria and crossed Cyprus from Salamis to Paphos. Acts 13:13 records, in the Douay-Rheims translation: "Now when Paul and they that were with him had sailed from Paphos, they came to Perge in Pamphylia. And John departing from them, returned to Jerusalem." Perga was thus the first city the missionary party entered on the mainland of Asia Minor during this journey, c. AD 46–48 (Scholarship on the dating). It was not, however, Paul's first time on the mainland itself: after his conversion he had been sent home to Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 9:30), and Galatians 1:21 places him in the regions of Syria and Cilicia in the years before Barnabas brought him from Tarsus to Antioch (Acts 11:25–26).

Two details stand out. First, Acts reports no preaching at Perga on this initial visit; the party seems to have passed directly through on its way north. Second, John Mark — the companion who had assisted Paul and Barnabas on Cyprus — left them here and returned to Jerusalem. Scripture gives no reason for his departure, though Acts 15:38 shows that Paul regarded it as a withdrawal from the work, and the disagreement later separated Paul and Barnabas. (Scholarship) Commentators have proposed several explanations: the hardship and insecurity of the road over the Taurus Mountains; an illness of Paul, sometimes connected with Galatians 4:13; or unease at the developing direction of the Gentile mission. None can be verified.

From Perga, Paul and Barnabas climbed out of the Pamphylian plain — an ascent of well over a thousand metres through the Taurus — to reach Pisidian Antioch, roughly 160 kilometres to the north, quite possibly along the Roman road known as the Via Sebaste (Scholarship). The landscape Paul left behind would have felt familiar to him: like Tarsus in Cilicia, where he was born and raised, Perga was a Greek-speaking city set on a navigable river, on a hot coastal plain beneath the Taurus wall. The two cities belong to the same southern Anatolian world, and travellers who follow Paul's geography often study them together.

On the return leg of the journey the silence of the first visit was answered. Acts 14:24–25 (Douay-Rheims): "And passing through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia. And having spoken the word of the Lord in Perge, they went down into Attalia." This time the word was preached in Perga itself, after which the apostles descended to the harbour of Attalia — the modern city of Antalya — and sailed back to Antioch in Syria. Acts records no congregation founded at Perga and no letter was ever addressed to it, but a Christian community is attested there in later centuries, and bishops of Perga took part in the councils of the early Church (Scholarship).

What Remains Today

Perge is one of the most rewarding archaeological sites in Türkiye, excavated by Turkish archaeologists almost continuously since 1946. The monument most directly linked to Paul's era is the Hellenistic city gate, whose two massive round towers of the third century BC were already standing for generations when he passed through; whatever route his party took into the city, this gate belonged to the Perga he saw. In the early second century AD the court behind it was remodelled into a marble-clad hall of honour by Plancia Magna, a leading benefactress of the city, whose inscriptions survive.

Most of the rest of the visible city post-dates Paul, a point worth keeping in mind: the apostle knew a more modest Hellenistic-early Roman town on the same street grid. The later monuments are nonetheless remarkable — a theatre against the hillside estimated to seat over ten thousand; a stadium that is among the best preserved in Anatolia; the southern baths with rooms still standing to a great height; two agoras; a monumental nymphaeum at the foot of the acropolis hill, from which water once cascaded into an open channel running down the centre of the colonnaded main street. Ruins of large basilica churches attest the city's later Christian life. Many of the celebrated statues unearthed at Perge, including images of Artemis and of the imperial family, are displayed in the archaeological museum in Antalya.

Visiting Context

The site lies beside Aksu, about eighteen kilometres east of the centre of Antalya in southern Türkiye, and is easily reached from the city. The ruins are extensive and largely flat, with long open walks and little shade; spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons, and early morning is best in summer. A visit pairs naturally with the museum in Antalya, where the finds are shown, and with the old harbour of Antalya itself — ancient Attalia, from which Paul sailed home (Acts 14:24–25).

For travellers tracing the first missionary journey, Perga stands between Paphos on Cyprus and Pisidian Antioch in the highlands, and it is commonly combined with the wider Pauline geography of the southern coast — above all with Tarsus in Cilicia, the apostle's birthplace and the centre of this library, which lies further east along the same southern shore. From Tarsus itself the road north to the Anatolian plateau climbs through the Cilician Gates, the famous Taurus pass above the city. Practical guidance for planning such a route is gathered in the pilgrimage guide, and the region's sites can be seen in relation to one another in the atlas.