Tar´sus, a celebrated city, the metropolis of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, on the banks of the River Cydnus, which flowed through it, and divided it into two parts. Tarsus was a distinguished seat of Greek philosophy and literature, and, from the number of its schools and learned men, was ranked by the side of Athens and Alexandria. Augustus made Tarsus free. This seems to have implied the privilege of being governed by its own laws and magistrates, with freedom from tribute; but did not confer the jus coloniarum, nor the jus civitatis: and it was not therefore, as usually supposed, on this account, that Paul enjoyed the privilege of Roman citizenship. Tarsus, indeed, eventually did become a Roman colony, which gave to the inhabitants this privilege; but this was not till long after the time of Paul. We thus find that the Roman tribune at Jerusalem ordered Paul to be scourged, though he knew that he was a native of Tarsus, but desisted on learning that he was a Roman citizen (;;; ). In the time of Abulfeda, that is, towards the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, Tarsus was still large, and surrounded by a double wall, and in the occupation of Armenian Christians. It is now a poor and decayed town, inhabited by Turks; but it is not so much fallen as many other anciently great towns of the same quarter, the population being estimated at 30,000. There are some considerable remains of the ancient city.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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