It Starts Small

Something interesting to learn about Smyrna is it’s name is synonymous with myrrh. Myrrh is an aromatic substance used sometimes as a healing ointment but more especially for embalming the dead.

Myrrh, aloes, and cassia perfume all your garments;
from ivory palaces harps bring you joy.

Psalm 45:8

Myrrh seems to have been the special perfume of Christ as King and Bridegroom. One of the chief ingredients of myrrh was made by crushing and bleeding a plant of the same name. This thorny plant, or tree, grows about eight or nine feet high. It is primarily located around Arabia and to some extent in Palestine. It is very bitter to the taste but has a fragrant odor. The more the plant is crushed and bruised the greater the fragrance. The name Smyrna, therefore, indicates suffering and persecution which prove a blessing. Smyrna would be crushed by cruel persecutions, but as a result of her sufferings would be anointed for a death and burial that would end in a resurrection and renewal of life. Although the afflictions would be bitter to the victim, they would result in releasing to the world the perfume of heaven.

Smyrna is considered one of the oldest cities of the world. It had a very eventful history. It is located at the head of a beautiful pay of the Aegean Sea. It has approximately thirty miles of coast line. Archologist unearthed a coin that had the phrase “For of Asia in size and beauty” inscribed on it. It’s size and location made it one of the finest cities of Asia which rivaled Ephesus tot he south and Pergamos to the north.

Unlike Ephesus, Smyrna was an education rival. It was the center of learning and religion. It was famed for schools of science and medicine. It had expansive libraries, pagan temples, and athletic contest venues. Smyrna had a theater that rested upon the slope of Mount Pagus. It was said to have set up to twenty thousand people. The ruins of it are still visible today.

As beautiful as it sounds, it’s history is not. Smyrna suffered from besieging armies, massacres, earthquakes, fires, and plagues. Somewhere around 600 BC the Lydians captured and almost completely destroyed the city. It lay in partial ruins for four hundred years but was rebuilt by the Greeks and again became a flourishing city. It was restored to life and prosperity. The city was destroyed by a terrible earthquake in AD 178, only eighty years after the church received the letter from John.

It was again crushed to death but was destined to recover, for it was “the city of life.” The city was restored to more than its former beauty and glory by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. There has seldom been a period of two years without an earthquake. The city was almost completely destroyed by a severe quake in 1688, when the earth opened and swallowed up five thousand people. In 1758 a plague almost depopulated the city, and in 1922 the Turks captured and partially destroyed the modern Smyrna.

Smyrna is the only one of the seven cities of Asia which retains anything of its ancient standing. It is today the largest city of Asia Minor. The population was recently reported to be 154,000. The present name under Turkish rule is Izmir. More than seven thousand ships of all nations visit the beautiful harbor of Smyrna each year, and its annual trade is valued at many millions of dollars. One of its chief exports is the famous Smyrna figs.

In all probability the church at Smyrna was founded by Paul during his third evangelistic journey (AD 53-56). This would seem a safe conclusion from Acts 19:10, where we read that “all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.”

Most historians believe that Polycarp was the leading bishop or minister of the church of Smyrna. The message to Smyrna covers the period of time when the Church went through tremendous persecution under the successive Roman Emperors. It has been recorded that Polycarp was forced to offer incense to the Emperor as a sign of loyalty and fidelity he refused. He was then sentenced to death and was burned at the stake on Mount Pagus around 168 A.D.

Polycarp’s martyrdom was a small taste of the kind of persecution and suffering the church endured. The Smyrnian period of church history extends from about 100 A.D. to 350 A.D. It was during this time that the church suffered the most brutal persecution under the Roman Emperors. Men like Marcus Aurelius, Vespasian, Diocletian, and Domitian were both sadistic and relentless in their pursuit of Christians. Many Christians were forced to meet in secret during this period of history. Many were burned at the stake or thrown to the wild beasts in arenas across the empire.

Of all the periods of persecution, the worst of all took place over a period of ten years under Emperor Diocletian. This lasted from 303 A.D. to 313 A.D. until Constantine took the Imperial throne.

Practically all the Roman emperors during the Ephesian and Smyrnean periods persecuted the Christians, but ten of them were more pronounced in their enmity. These were Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian. As the Pontifex Maximus of the religion of the state, the emperor was the “protector of the Roman gods.” It was therefore his duty to guard the religion of the empire against the inroads of other systems.

For ten prophetic days the persecution was to continue, and during that time Christians would be put under pressure and given “the third degree” of torture. As the result of this the persecutors were finally convinced that it would be useless to prolong the process. The last and most bloody of these ten persecutions took place under Diocletian, and lasted ten years from AD 302 to 312. Commentators believe that the “ten days” refer especially to this ten-year period, the conclusion being arrived at on the basis of a day representing a year in symbolic prophecy.

The “ten days” of trial mentioned in the Smyrnean letter represent a period that would test God’s people to the limit of their endurance both in severity and duration. Christians were to pass through a complete baptism of suffering and martyrdom with the assurance of the fullness of Christ’s love and sympathy and the promise of a “crown of life” as the reward of loyalty and steadfastness.